Nansun Shi, the Hong Kong producer and co-founder of Film Workshop, has died, age 75.
According to a statement from Film Workshop, Shi died peacfully at Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital on Monday (13 July). She had been in declining health because of immune system complications, said the statement, and recurrent infections resulted in multiple organ dysfunction.
Born in Hong Kong and educated in the UK, Shi began her film career in the early 1980s at Hong Kong studio Cinema City. In 1984 she co-founded production operation Film Workshop with her then husband, director Tsui Hark, working on projects including the Once Upon a Time in China series and Peking Opera Blues.
Shi went on to work at companies including Media Asia and Bona Film Group and became a producer and production designer, with credits including Internal Affairs and Hark’s Double Team. Her other producing credits include The Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate, Young Detective Dee – Rise of the Sea Dragon and The Taking of Tiger Mountain.
Shi was a member of juries at the Berlin and Cannes festivals and won awards including the Locarno festival’s Premio Raimondo Rezzonico for Best Independent Producer, the Udine festival’s Golden Mulberry Life Achievement Award and Busan’s Marie Claire Asia Star Awards’ Special Achievement Award. In 2013 she was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.