Yu Cao

Cao Yu (born August 15, 1974) is a Chinese cinematographer and the founder of Bad Rabbit Pictures. He is a member of both the American and Chinese Society of Cinematographers. Cao Yu began his cinematic career after graduating from the Department of Film Photography at the Beijing Film Academy in 1997. He won the Young Artist Fund of the 54th Cannes Film Festival for his graduation work, Waiting to Dodge. He was the Director of Photography of the film, Flying like a Feather, which won the Locarno International Film Festival Committee Special Award in 2001. Cao has worked with Chinese filmmaker Lu Chuan on multiple titles, including Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004), a drama inspired by a true story, City of Life and Death (2009) a war film that re-creates a tragic chapter in Chinese history, and the Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe (2015), an adventure action film adapted from Tianxia Bachang's 2006 best-selling novel Ghost Blows Out the Light. In 2004, Kekexili won the Golden Rooster and Golden Horse for Best Picture. In the same year, it also won the Special Jury Prize at the 17th Tokyo International Film Festival. City of Life and Death has been invited to be screened at numerous film festivals, winning Best Film Awards at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the 2009 San Sebastian International Film Festival. Also, it earned him multiple Best Cinematography Awards at festivals aforementioned as well as the 2010 Asian Film and Golden Horse awards. In 2016, See You Tomorrow, a 2016 Chinese-Hong Kong romantic comedy film produced by Wong Kar-wai garnered him the Best Cinematography Award at the 36th Hong Kong Film Awards. In recent years, Cao has collaborated with film director Chen Kaige on the 2017 fantasy mystery film Legend of the Demon Cat.