Hunter Integrated Media Arts student Wendy Cong Zhao has won a prestigious Princess Grace Award for Film and Animation.
The Brooklyn-based Zhao, who has been working in animation since 2011, studies in Hunter’s renowned Film & Media Studies Department with Professors Kelly Anderson and Andrew Lund. Her animated documentary “My First Sessions” was published by The New Yorker in 2020. She has directed three music videos for UMG, including “Cheek to Cheek” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” from Christopher Tin’s Grammy-nominated album The Lost Birds. Her work tackles such subjects as migration, mental health, identity, and loss.
"I'm so grateful to my teachers and mentors at the Integrated Media Arts MFA program at Hunter, who nominated me for the Princess Grace Award." Cong Zhao said. "With the grant, I'll be able to better develop my thesis film over the next year."
The Princess Grace Foundation-USA, a New York-based nonprofit, furthers the legacy of Princess Grace of Monaco (née Grace Kelly) by elevating extraordinary emerging artists in theater, dance, and film through career-advancing grants.
