Blue Hole

"Blue Hole" originated from the dreams, imaginations, and intimate conversations with a lover written by a young girl born in the 1990s, which was collected from a little-known WeChat public account. In the film, the female protagonist gets lost in a blue cave, and her cell phone becomes her only connection to the outside world. Two other young girls are searching for a lost friend in the forest while discussing the loneliness they experience in the virtual world. Their search evokes childhood memories, taking them back to an earlier time. Although their paths intersect, they cannot recognize each other's faces.
"Blue Hole" depicts a world that is both connected and disconnected from us, revealing the narrow gap in which our loneliness relies between the real and virtual worlds. In this current era of interconnected media, the cellphone screen acts as a "hole" emitting a faint blue light that beckons us. Chen Zhou believes that beneath the guise of modernization lies a multitude of lonely and restless souls, sending out faint distress signals through electronic devices and the vastness of the internet. (Dai Zhanglun)
"Blue Hole" was commissioned by curators Shen Boliang and Dai Zhanglun, and it was created from the perspective of Wang Wenxuan, the husband in the novel "Cold Night" by Ba Jin. Chen Zhou transposes the characters from the novel, who faced internal and external threats during wartime, into the context of contemporary urban life, characterized by alienation and virtuality.

short film, HD2880P, 22min15sec, 2017 Music by: Jiafeng Gao, Special thanks: New Century Art Foundation, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art