Career
Peng Xiaolian was born in Shanghai, the youngest daughter of former Communist cadre Peng Baishan (彭伯山), who was imprisoned as a counterrevolutionay when she was two. Her mother was a translator of film dialogue. In 1968, Peng Xiaolian"s father was whipped to death by Red Guards.
She was relocated from Shanghai to rural Jiangxi as an "educated youth" and stayed there for nine years.
In 1982, she graduated from the Department of Directing of the Beijing Film Academy and started working at the Shanghai Film Studio. In 1989 she went to the United States on a scholarship to pursue an Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University.
She returned to Shanghai in 1996.