Kit Zauhar

Kit Zauhar (born June 6, 1995) is an Asian American filmmaker best known for the feature films Actual People and This Closeness.

Early life Zauhar was born in Philadelphia. Her mother is a Chinese immigrant who came to the United States to study medicine, while her father is white. She has one sister. In high school, Zauhar directed her first short film, titled It Was Fall.

Education Zauhar graduated from New York University in 2017. She later enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts program in nonfiction writing at Columbia University, but left the program after a year amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to finish work on her first feature film.

Career While attending NYU, Zauhar wrote and directed the short film Helicopter, released in 2016. Her 2018 short film Terrestrials, about a device that allows people to meet for anonymous sex on the metaphysical plane, was recognized with the Best Screenplay award in the International Short Film Competition during the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Zauhar wrote, directed, and starred in her debut feature, Actual People, an autofictional work inspired by her final week at NYU which premiered at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival.

In June 2024, Variety reported that Zauhar would adapt a film adaptation of the 2010 Sheila Heti novel How Should a Person Be? for Neon Heart Productions, the company that produced This Closeness.

Filmography Year Title Notes Ref. 2016 Helicopter Short film Slamdance Film Festival Outstanding Performance in a Feature Film Jeonju International Film Festival International Competition 2023 South by Southwest Film Festival Narrative Spotlight This Closeness Champs-Élysées Film Festival American Feature Film Competition Seattle International Film Festival New American Cinema Competition Special Jury Prize Valencia International Cinema Jove Film Festival Young Jury Award for Best Feature Film Philadelphia Film Festival Best Local Feature