Zhang Wei (b. Hunan Province, 1965) is a former businessman and entrepreneur in the Shenzhen electronics industry turned writer, screenwriter and film director/producer. His unusual background in manufacturing industry and commerce, his ability to part-finance his own productions and his forceful personality all help to ensure that his films are not like those of any other independent film director working in China today. His directorial debut, _Beijing Grassland_ (2010), also known as _Beijing Dream_, was about a young African man's dream of becoming rich and famous in Beijing, while _Shadow_ (2011) follows a traditional shadow puppet master's struggle to make a living in an increasingly commercialised and competitive society and entertainments industry. _Factory Boss_ (2014) is a very powerful realistic drama set in the declining toy manufacturing industry of the Pearl River Delta, which shows how the forces of globalisation and unfettered competition are putting intolerable pressures on both factory workers and their bosses. _Xihe_ ('Destiny')(2014) focuses on a mother's desperate attempts to raise her autistic son and keep him in mainstream education despite the opposition of other parents and the apathy of the boy's father, while Zhang's latest film _Ballad from Tibet_ (2017) follows the varying fortunes of a group of Tibetan children and their elders all making the same journey but for different reasons. Although quite different in subject-matter, all Zhang's films share a deep humanistic concern with the plight of disadvantaged or isolated individuals who find themselves increasingly marginalised or left behind in China's headlong rush towards social and economic modernisation at whatever cost. Together with his exceptional talent both as a screenwriter and director, this powerful underlying social awareness and conscience have made Zhang Wei one of the leading independent practitioners of social-realist film drama working in China today.