隔壁女人 CUI Mingjian 15 min 2025 Fiction English, Mandarin, Cantonese English and Chinese Subtitles
Content Advisory: This film contains scenes of violence, disturbing content
The 20th FIRST International Film Festival—FIRST FRAME Short of the Year
In a remote American college town, international student Rui kills her husband and spends a week with his body. Years later, their former neighbour still returns to the life next door, searching the silences and fractures of an ordinary marriage for what might have been quietly taking shape within.
Director
CUI Mingjian is a bilingual filmmaker from Nanjing, China, now based in Auckland, Aotearoa. While studying film production in the United States, she worked on over 40 short films, gaining experience across both above-the-line and below-the-line roles. From 2022 to 2024, she participated in A Wave in the Ocean, a film intensive in Aotearoa led by Jane Campion and Philippa Campbell. The Girl Next Door had its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival and was subsequently selected for the 20th FIRST International Film Festival in China, where it received the “Short of the Year” award in the FIRST FRAME section.
Credits DirectorCUI Mingjian Principal CastAnn AN, Roxie PU Yihan ProducerEmma MORTIMER, Olivia SHANKS
Executive ProducerJane CAMPION, Philippa CAMPBELL
ScreenplayCUI Mingjian CinematographerAdam LUXTON Production DesignerMark GRENFELL Costume DesignerSacha YOUNG HMU DesignerKatie Melody ROGERS EditorHSU Chia-chi SoundMaxwell SCOTT MusicEric LI Weilong
8:00 PM, MON, NOV 23Innis Town HallScreening + Q&AScreening with Dear Kankan (17 min), Delay (15 min), Homecoming and Going (20 min), Other Side of a Seesaw (22 min)
Dear Kankan 我的朋友陈看看 Hana ZHANG, Eugene LEE 17 min Fiction, Hybrid Mandarin
7th Feinaki Beijing Animation Week—Jury’s Choice Award
Every day, I peer through a hole in the wall into the life of my neighbour, Kankan. A cockroach crawling onto a coffee mug; cotton candy from childhood. Memory obeys no order of time, while we remain forever alone within its linear flow.
Director's note:
The story starts with a question I've been wrestling for quite some time: Can someone who has passed away branch out another span of life if we preserve them in our minds day after day? Sometimes, snippets of my childhood that I thought I had forgotten strike me in the most unexpected way. I began to realize that memories were increasingly tethered to who l am today, even those things and people I thought I had long forgotten. That was when the character “Kankan” came into my life.
Directors
Hana ZHANG is a Shanghai-based visual artist, filmmaker, and writer with an MFA from Bard College. From her early work in photography and self-publishing to later ventures in installations, moving images, and stop-motion animation, Hana has gradually integrated multiple expressive media in this process, constructing an artistic microcosm that both reflects on herself and observes the changes around her. Her work has been exhibited at the A.I.R. Gallery Biennial, Mana Contemporary, the International Center of Photography, and the Museum of the Moving Image. She was the Grand Prize winner of the 2018 MAP Toulouse Photography Festival and was shortlisted for the Three Shadows Photography Award and the PDN Photo Annual/Exposure Award. Eugene LEE holds an MFA from Bard College. He primarily focuses on audio-visual projects and installations, explores the intangibles of fleeting emotions through his works.
DirectorHana ZHANG, Eugene LEE Principal CastSunny SUN ProducerSONG Dafa, Sunny SUN ScreenplayEugene LEE, Hana ZHANG CinematographerEugene LEE, Luc WU Yikai
Production DesignerHana ZHANG, FANG Xueyi, HE Lei (Animation)
EditorEugene LEE MusicEugene LEE
8:00 PM, MON, NOV 23Innis Town HallScreening + Q&AScreening with Delay (15 min), Homecoming and Going (20 min), Other Side of a Seesaw (22 min), The Girl Next Door (15 min)
Homecoming and Going 逆留 Kristie KO 20 min Cantonese, English
Content Advisory: This film contains scenes of tobacco use; substance use
The 19th Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival—Audience Award
Emily has just arrived in London, while her old friend Megan prepares to return to Hong Kong and hand over her flat. One is settling in; the other uprooting herself once again. For those caught in between, returning and leaving can carry the same quiet ache.
Kristie KO is a writer and director based between Hong Kong and London. Her short films have screened at Fresh Wave, Golden Harvest, Shanghai and Asian American International Film Festival. She is a USC graduate, Tribeca Through Her Lens and HAF Film Lab alum.
DirectorKristie KO
Principal CastJoanne LEUNG, Bonde SHAM, Boing YUEN
ProducerSophia SHEK ScreenplayKristie KO CinematographerNatalie A. CHAO Production DesignerDavid HURTADO EditorJonny HO SoundLI Ka Wai MusicCEHRYL
8:00 PM, MON, NOV 23Screening with Dear Kankan (17 min), Delay (15 min), Other Side of a Seesaw (22 min), The Girl Next Door (15 min)
Other Side of a Seesaw 跷跷板另一边 QIU Runfeng 22 min 2026 Documentary, Experimental No dialogue English Subtitles
Once upon a time, four-year-old Zhuang Zhou sat on one side of a seesaw, a butterfly on the other.
QIU Runfeng is a filmmaker working across animation and documentary. Often inspired by the psychological effects of information overflow and semantic satiation, his work explores the displacement of history, imagination, and perception.
8:00 PM, MON, NOV 23Innis Town HallScreening + Q&AScreening with Dear Kankan (17 min), Delay (15 min), Homecoming and Going (20 min), The Girl Next Door (15 min)
Delay 远方延误 WANG Han-Xuan Mandarin, French
The 30th Busan International Film Festival—Wide Angle Asian Short Film Competition, Sonje Award
A middle-aged man comes out later in life and ends his marriage. As his son prepares for his wedding in Paris, an unexpected travel delay brings the hurt and divided loyalties that still linger to the surface.
WANG Hanxuan is a New York–based writer-director. H graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and earned his MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University. His previous works have been selected for the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), the 17th FIRST International Film Festival, and the 27th Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. He currently teaches film directing at Columbia University.
DirectorWANG Hanxuan
Principal CastWU Wei, WANG Boxiao, ZHANG Chuwen, YAN Dongnan
ProducerREN Guang, WANG Qinting, ZHANG Jiaqi
ScreenplayWANG Hanxuan, MEN Tiankuo CinematographerLIU Shuailiang Production DesignerLiu Yu'ang Costume DesignerZHANG Jiaqi EditorWANG Hanxuan, LIU Shuailiang SoundHE Junyi
8:00 PM, MON, NOV 23Screening with Dear Kankan (17 min), Homecoming and Going (20 min), Other Side of a Seesaw (22 min), The Girl Next Door (15 min)
Estimated end time: based on the published film runtimes added together, plus 30 minutes for the announced Q&A. The publisher gives a start but no complete session finish; confirm the final running time with the festival. The shared festival checkout lets you choose the correct screening; festival packs are separate multi-screening products.
Published individual screening admission: CA$11.98 (incl. CA$1.98 Fee). Ticket option: Fountainhead Shorts (1) | 8:00 PM NOV 23. The Girl Next Door, Dear Kankan, Homecoming and Going, Other Side of a Seesaw, Delay 《隔壁女人》《我的朋友陈看看》《逆留》《跷跷板另一边》《远方延误》 Fountainhead Programme | “源泉”单元
Location details: Innis College — Innis Town Hall Theatre; access via east atrium