Tze Chun
Filmmaker; wrote and directed Sundance-nominated film, Windowbreaker

Studying film history at Columbia, Tze Chun went from being “one person at Milton who was really into film, to New York City, where thousands of people are—or want to be—filmmakers.” Always a serious visual artist, Tze spent his first year after graduating from college painting portraits. Represented by a gallery in the city, he found that was a fine way to earn a living. “However,” Tze admits, “eventually I had to choose between film and painting. I realized that if I wasn’t willing to follow the career path I was on for the next ten years, I might be wasting my time and energy. I knew that working in film would allow me more mental space.”

Tze’s taste for filmmaking began in his Class III year at Milton. Enrolled in an independent study of film and video production with faculty member Peter Moll, Tze first learned how to make and edit films. Building off this foundation and his studies at Columbia, he developed a plan for success in this highly competitive field. “I found that I needed to be creating and producing work, lots of work,” Tze says. “I was proud of everything I created, but not all of it had to be ‘the best thing I’d ever done.’ I turned out lots of shorts [short films], figuring the more work I produced, the better the odds were in my favor. It was about getting myself out there, learning what worked and what didn’t.” Creating shorts allowed him to produce more work more quickly, with lower costs and less narrative to create. Tze explains that short films are often the best, if not only, way to be noticed by a producer, since most won’t watch or read a feature-length film submitted by an unknown artist.

Tze’s professional affirmation came in January 2007 when his film Window-breaker was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the premier showcase of the independent film industry. Windowbreaker is a semi-autobiographical film based in the mixed-race neighborhood of a Boston suburb, where paranoia and stereotype-driven suspicions arise around a series of break-ins. The short was filmed in Tze’s childhood home with his mother playing the mother in the film.

“I’ve always created films that were very character-based and character-driven,” Tze says. “I like doing personal stories that take place in a significant political or social climate, and exploring how the implications of what’s going on in that time affect the decisions these people make.” His most recent screenplay and directorial project is based on his mother’s story of growing up in Singapore under harsh conditions. He explains, “It’s an immigrant story that takes place during a time when countries in Asia were quickly rising from developing nations to serious global players.” Tze is in negotiations with a Hong Kong–based production company that would allow shooting of the film to begin in March of this year.

In addition to this project, Tze is shooting a feature-length version of Windowbreaker and—although caught up in the Writers Guild strike at the time of print—plans to commence work on the new Darren Star show, Cashmere Mafia, for ABC.

“This work always feels fresh for me,” Tze says. “Whether it’s technique or my subject matter, I’m energized as long as I’m learning something. Both in painting and in making movies, what has always been most energizing to me is jumping into an art form with hundreds of years of history, knowing nothing, and learning all about it—how it started, how to create it. As long as that learning is happening, I’m excited and energized by the process.”

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Tze was recently named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.

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