https://web.archive.org/web/20130821204951/https://filmmakermagazine.com/people/chloe-zhao/
She admits, “I get asked a lot, ‘Why are you doing this?’” Zhao says that the same impulses that led her to political science attracted her to this tale of an insurgent Lakota teen finding his way to adulthood within a cloistered environment in which teen suicide is rampant. “It goes back to when I was a teenager in China, being in a place where there are lies everywhere,” she continues. “You felt like you were never going to be able to get out. A lot of info I received when I was younger was not true, and I became very rebellious toward my family and my background. I went to England suddenly and relearned my history. Studying political science in a liberal arts college was a way for me to figure out what is real. Arm yourself with information, and then challenge that too.”