Zheng Guo'en (; January 1930 – 18 April 2019) was a Chinese film theorist,

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

, director, and educator. A longtime professor at Beijing Film Academy, he trained many prominent Chinese filmmakers including

Zhang Yimou Zhang Yimou (; born 2 April 1950) is a Chinese film director, producer, writer, actor and former cinematographer.Tasker, Yvonne (2002). "Zhang Yimou" i''Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers'' Routledge Publishing, p. 412. . Google Book Search. Retriev ...

. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival in 2018.

Biography

Zheng was born in January 1930 in Anda, Heilongjiang, China. He entered the Northeast Film Studio as a trainee in 1948 and worked as a

at the studio after completing his training. He entered Northeast Normal University in 1951 and graduated three years later with a degree in

Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...

. From 1954 to 1956, he worked and trained at Mosfilm in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. After returning to China in 1956, he began teaching at Beijing Film Academy. From 1962 to 1964, he spent another two years in the Soviet Union to further his studies at the

All-Union State Institute of Cinematography The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...

. After the disruptions of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, Zheng served as deputy chair and later chair (after 1984) of the Department of Cinematography of Beijing Film Academy. His students included

, Gu Changwei, Hou Yong, Wang Xiaolie, and Zhang Huijun. In 1999, Zheng went to

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

and helped establish the cinematography department at Sichuan Film and Television University. He was named an honorary professor at the university. Zheng co-directed the film ''At the Foot of the Icy Mountain'' (1984) and was the cinematographer for ''A Girl's Tomb'' (1982) and ''Red Waves in the Blue Sea'' (1975), among others. In November 2018, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival (). Zheng died on 18 April 2019 in Beijing, at the age of 89.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zheng, Guoen 1930 births 2019 deaths People from Anda Film theorists Chinese cinematographers Film directors from Heilongjiang Beijing Film Academy faculty Northeast Normal University alumni Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography alumni Chinese expatriates in the Soviet Union Educators from Heilongjiang