Zhou Hua: The filmmaker from Zhangzhishan who brings everyday stories to life

While duanju represents the short version of television series, the short film remains its natural cousin for feature films. It is within this context that we present today the work of Chinese director Zhou Hua, originally from Nantong, Jiangsu province.

Independent filmmaker Zhou Hua dedicates his free time to filming stories inspired by his local environment: the inhabitants, everyday gestures, and traces of a past that resonate with the present. In an interview with Wenwen Han, he explains that his approach is based on simplicity and truth: filming without artifice, in the streets and houses of his hometown, to capture emotion as it arises, without excessive staging. “I’m not trying to embellish reality,” he says. “What interests me is that fragile moment when a person, a place, or a gesture reveals something true.”

His latest short film, shot in Zhangzhishan, a small village in Nantong, is the finest illustration of this. The film, available on XinPianChang, reveals a poetic and profoundly human perspective on contemporary China, a China of faces and silences, far removed from the tumult of major cities. "Every street in Zhangzhishan tells a story," Zhou Hua explains. "It's where I learned to observe, to listen, to film."

Watching Zhou Hua's film is to rediscover the quiet strength of local cinema: the kind that, with few resources, manages to express reality.

Interview conducted by Wenwen Han.

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