Arthouse hero's 20-year opus gets release

In May, the film was nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, the sixth time Jia has been nominated in the festival's main competition section. Five months later, it secured the Best International Film award at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, one of the oldest and most influential film events in South America.

"The film started with casual and occasional inspiration," Jia tells China Daily during a recent interview.

Recalling the project's inception in 2001, Jia says he conceived the idea of shooting the movie when digital cameras emerged on the domestic market as a more convenient and accessible tool. Originally titled Na Shuma Sheyingji de Ren (Man with a Digital Camera), the project was inspired by Man with a Movie Camera, a 1929 silent documentary film from the Soviet Union directed by Dziga Vertov.

"We were planning to take a digital camera, wander around different places, film unplanned encounters with people, and use this method to explore the first few years of a new century," Jia says.