Zhaoning Lyu
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Zhaoning Lyu (Lyu ZN) is a film director, producer, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Her work spans narrative fiction, documentary, branded content, and AI-generated cinema.
She produced and co-wrote Hustling in the US, a five-episode short drama about the overseas international student experience that drew over one million views on streaming platforms. Rather than treating its subjects as a culturally uniform group, the series examined the internal tensions of that community, the push and pull between outside identity and self-perception, between two sets of expectations, between distance and the relationships it quietly reshapes.
Her most recent film, The Sanctuary (2026), is a science fiction feature made entirely with AIGC technology. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, it explores how power distorts the people it touches under conditions of extremity. The film treats AI not as a production shortcut but as the visual language through which its world is built.
Lyu has entered the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast Emmy Awards with Hallelujah, Perrier Jouët, and Expensive Things. In 2025, she was invited to serve as a juror for the Southeast Student Production Awards.
She produced and co-wrote Hustling in the US, a five-episode short drama about the overseas international student experience that drew over one million views on streaming platforms. Rather than treating its subjects as a culturally uniform group, the series examined the internal tensions of that community, the push and pull between outside identity and self-perception, between two sets of expectations, between distance and the relationships it quietly reshapes.
Her most recent film, The Sanctuary (2026), is a science fiction feature made entirely with AIGC technology. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, it explores how power distorts the people it touches under conditions of extremity. The film treats AI not as a production shortcut but as the visual language through which its world is built.
Lyu has entered the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast Emmy Awards with Hallelujah, Perrier Jouët, and Expensive Things. In 2025, she was invited to serve as a juror for the Southeast Student Production Awards.
