Her films usually reflect this curiosity and desire to explore. Zhao’s short film Daughters won First Place Student Live Action Short at the 2010 Palm Springs International Short Fest and Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival. Zhao is currently developing her first feature film Lee, which is a coming-of-age drama set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Lee was personally selected by filmmaker Spike Lee as a recipient of the Spike Lee Fellowship Award, which earned Zhao a screenwriting fellowship at Yaddo Artist Residency. Zhao was raised in Beijing and England and received her BA in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and is now a MFA thesis student at New York University’s graduate film program.