Barbara Wong Chun-chun was born in 1972 and works as a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, producer and actress, as well as an independent documentary maker who films relationships from a female perspective; her younger sister is the sommelier Peggy Wong. In 1990, while studying drama at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, she won a best actress award for a stage production; after graduating she worked as a disc jockey at Commercial Radio under the stage name Wong Lok-tung. In 1993 she went to the United States to study film production at New York University, where she began working in documentary and her graduation film 'Hugo' won the school's best student film award, and from 1995 to 1998 she ran Basko Wong Productions in New York, making current-affairs programmes for broadcasters such as NBC and CBS. Her independent feature of 1997 premiered in December 1998 and was selected for the Film Society of Lincoln Center's new directors showcase, and she returned to Hong Kong in 1999. Her first feature as director, 'Women's Private Parts' (2001), interviewed Hong Kong women about sex and love; besides an Outstanding Young Director nomination at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards, it won the Best International Film prize at the New York International Independent Film Festival and was nominated at six other international festivals. Her 'Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat' (2003) earned a Best New Director nomination at the 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards, and her 2004 film was nominated in the Asian New Talent section of the 8th Shanghai International Film Festival. From 2011 she turned to the mainland market, directing 'The Allure of Tears', 'The Stolen Years' (2013), 'Girls', 'The Secret', 'Girls 2' and 'Don't Forget I Love You'; 'The Stolen Years' performed well on both sides of the strait. She has been named a Hong Kong Outstanding Young Person and received an American Chamber of Commerce Young Achiever award, and later founded Real Pictures.
Barbara Wong filmed relationships from a female perspective and was one of the independent documentary makers to emerge in the 1990s; she later moved into commercial romance, with 'The Stolen Years' and 'Girls' performing well in the mainland and Taiwanese markets. Her earlier 'Women's Private Parts' and similar works left a record of Hong Kong women's issues.
Achievements
- 1993 · Went to New York University in the United States to study film production.
- 2001 · Directed her first feature, Women's Private Parts, which earned an Outstanding Young Director nomination at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards.
- 2013 · Directed The Stolen Years, which performed well in both the mainland and Taiwanese markets.