Shen Xiling

Shen Xiling (Chinese沉 西 苓; * 1904 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, † December 19, 1940 in Chongqing) was a Chinese film director and screenwriter.

Shen Xiling learned textile dyeing before turning to art. He first completed an internship as a stage in a Japanese theater. In 1928 he returned to China and became involved in leftist theater groups, taught at two art schools and moonlighted as a window dresser.

In 1931, he accepted an offer as a production designer on the film company Tianyi to work. Shen wrote his first screenplay, The protest of Women, but his desire to take over the director for the film, was rejected by the studio. Shen then went to the Mingxing Film Society, where he was able in 1933 to film his screenplay. His second film Twenty- Four Hours in Shanghai (1933 ) had problems with censorship, he was released only after cuts. Shen Xiling refused indeed to publish the mangled version, but the studio consisted of economic interests on it. Despite discord he remained until 1937 when Mingxing. He was involved in the production of the most financially successful films Zi mei hua ( Twin Sisters, 1934) by Zheng Zhengqiu and The Trouble with Daughters ( 1934) by Zhang Shichuan and directed the Chinese classics of the 1930s: Homesick, Boatman 's Daughter ( both 1935) and in particular Shizi jietou ( Crossroads, 1937) with Dan Zhao and Bai Yang.

Shen then moved to Lianhua, where he was the Director of The True Story of Ah Q, is an adaptation of a famous short story by Lu Xun was promised. Due to the start of the Sino-Japanese War, the project never came off. After the capture of Shanghai by the Japanese in 1938 Shen went to Chongqing, where he was shooting for Nationalist Central Film Studio Children of China ( 1939).

Shen Xiling died in 1940 of typhoid fever.