Ellen Eliasoph - Main Interview

China Hands

Ellen Eliasoph is a film executive and producer who has spent the last 25 years building bridges among China's film industry, Hollywood, and the global film market. Ellen is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale College and a graduate of Yale Law School, during the latter being amongst the group of the first Americans to study in China.
Before working in the film industry, she utilised her legal studies to play a key role in the building of China’s legal system – some of the forms she created back then she still uses in her work today.
Ellen became the first Hollywood executive to be based in China when she established Warner Bros.' Beijing office in 1993. As a movie aficionado, it’s super exciting to hear Ellen talk about her arranging and managing the China releases of the Matrix and Harry Potter series and other Warner Bros. blockbusters, and serving as the studio production executive on its Chinese films and co-productions.
The interview was recorded on the 6th of May, 2023 and Ellen’s references to the Shanghai International Film Festival refer to the iteration back in June this year.