About me
Born in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles, Sheldon Chau discovered his love for cinema when his father brought home Jackie Chan laserdiscs, and later deepened that passion through films from the Criterion Collection. After college, a short documentary interview with his father—about his parents’ escape from Vietnam as part of the Chinese boat-people diaspora—solidified Chau’s commitment to storytelling. He holds a BA in Film Studies from UC Irvine and an MFA in filmmaking from NYU Tisch. Chau’s cinematography work has screened at major festivals with recent projects such as "Pooja, Sir" (Venice '24), "Demba" (Berlinale '24), "Enmity Djinn" (Netflix), and "Zi" (Sundance '26). He is the recipient of the ARRI Volker Bahnemann Award for Cinematography, an AWC Fellow at Visual Communications, and a member of the ASC Vision Mentorship program, and is known for shooting internationally with crews ranging from large productions to agile guerrilla teams.
