1. Can you share a bit about your journey into filmmaking and what drew you to the craft?

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Unfortunately, my story follows the most predictable trajectory imaginable: the film-loving kid who stumbles upon classics, gets obsessed, and decides to ruin their life by making art. It all started innocently enough—watching some slick Korean thrillers—but then, one fateful New Year’s Eve, at the ripe age of 13, I decided to tackle Tarkovsky's Stalker. The reaction? “Holy shit, that's how far cinema can go?” That one film hijacked my brain and planted the idea that creativity could exist at such an immense level.

Unlike the privileged spawn of bourgeois families with fancy film schools on their resumes, I learned everything the hard way: self-taught, soaking in the chaos of grassroots projects, broke productions, and wild ambitions that often spiraled into artistic disasters. I didn't get a cushy apprenticeship—I earned my scars by writing scripts no one read and building sets that fell apart mid-shoot. The Dog and The Fountain was supposed to be a modest 15-minute short. But art doesn’t care about plans. It demanded more, so I gave it more. It’s either you sacrifice for your vision or you betray it. Simple.

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2. How has your multicultural background as French-Portuguese living in China influenced your creative vision?

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Being caught in a perpetual state of cultural limbo is probably the greatest gift for any artist—or at least, that’s the narrative I tell myself to cope. When you're neither here nor there, you're forced to see the world as an outsider. This constant sense of detachment becomes your default lens.

Living in China hasn’t grounded me; it’s amplified the ghostly sensation of wandering through a world I don't fully belong to. You float between cultures like a spirit caught in limbo, which is endlessly inspiring because you’re always observing, always disconnected. This rootlessness pushes you to explore themes that transcend borders. That’s where my art comes from: a strange place of always being somewhere, but never feeling at home.

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3. The Dog and The Fountain is your directorial debut. What inspired you to tell this story in particular?

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To be honest, nothing inspired it. The film is about nothingness—a vacuum, a void. It’s not a story; it’s an anti-story. Pretentious as it sounds, the ambition was to capture the texture of emptiness. Life is absurd, chaotic, and indifferent, and instead of pretending there’s meaning behind it, I chose to confront its blankness head-on. The Dog and The Fountain isn’t about finding answers; it’s about living in the absence of them. Call it nihilism, call it existentialism—I don’t care. It’s just honest.

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4. The film's title is intriguing. What significance do "The Dog" and "The Fountain" hold in the narrative?

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Titles are traps. Explaining them is like giving away the ending to a mystery novel before the first chapter. Suffice it to say, these symbols mean something, but their significance is meant to be discovered in context. And frankly, I’m not here to spoon-feed anyone. Watch the film. Sit with it. The title will make sense … or it won’t. That’s on you.

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5. You’ve emphasized temporality as a core theme in your work. How does it manifest in this film?

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Time is both the canvas and the paint in The Dog and The Fountain. It stretches and bends, forcing the viewer to confront their discomfort with slowness. When time lingers, you start questioning your relationship to the world. It’s like staring into an abyss: the longer you look, the more you see yourself.

But here’s the thing—I’m not out to bore anyone for the sake of being “artsy.” That’s lazy. My goal was to create a rhythm that feels slow enough to challenge the viewer, but not so sluggish that they start checking their watches. It’s a fine line, and honestly, I think I nailed it.

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6. The apocalyptic setting in your film feels deeply metaphorical. How did you conceptualize and visually realize this world?

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The apocalypse is about the collapse of meaning. When everything that grounds us disintegrates, you’re left with a wasteland, both external and internal. That’s what I wanted to capture.

Visually, it meant showing time’s corrosive effect on the physical world. With the set design team, we built environments where decay was the protagonist. Every texture, every shadow was crafted to emphasize that sense of erosion. The apocalypse isn’t an explosion; it’s a slow unraveling. That’s what you’ll see on-screen.

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7. Your work often explores the tension between emptiness and meaning. What challenges did you face in conveying this cinematically?

 

The biggest challenge was restraint. How do you say everything while saying almost nothing? How do you keep things sparse without tipping into pretentious minimalism?

​Cinematically, the film had to feel rich without being loud. It was about layering the frame with subtleties—small gestures, muted colors, lingering silences. But honestly, the film directed itself in many ways. Once the concept was clear, it unfolded organically. If it felt difficult at times, it’s because art isn’t meant to be easy.

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8. Living in China has been a significant part of your journey. Did any specific experiences or cultural elements directly influence this film?

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Here’s the thing: cultural differences are overhyped. Living in China, I’ve realized that the so-called uniqueness of each country is just window dressing. Strip it away, and people everywhere are running the same rat race—working, consuming, dying. It’s the same bleak cycle, whether you’re in Lisbon, Paris, or Beijing.

What China does offer, though, is a particularly stark lens on this emptiness. There’s a surreal detachment here—a society that moves forward while its soul lags behind. That duality shaped my approach to depicting emptiness in the film.

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9. As a teacher and sinologist, how has your academic background informed your approach to storytelling?

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Academia is a graveyard of creativity. People write about ideas instead of living them. My time studying “multi-millennial” Chinese culture only reinforced one thing: romanticizing the past is a waste of time. Every society is rotten, whether it’s ancient or modern.

But I will say this: my background helped me see through the façade of cultural exceptionalism. It taught me to look at the universal truths beneath the surface—and that’s what informs my storytelling.

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10. Thrillers often explore real-life fears. How do you see The Dog and The Fountain resonating with universal existential anxieties?

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The film doesn’t provide comfort or answers. It doesn’t offer a resolution to fear or anxiety. Instead, it mirrors them back at the audience. It’s raw and unfiltered, refusing to sugarcoat the human condition. It’s not about fixing anything—it’s about sitting with the discomfort. That’s the resonance: the honesty of facing life’s uncertainties without flinching.

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11. What do you think experimental filmmakers should focus on to create emotionally impactful work in abstract settings?

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Experimental filmmaking should be a fistfight with the conventions of cinema. Too many so-called experimental works end up as glorified museum pieces—art for art’s sake, utterly detached from reality. That’s not cinema.

To make an impact, filmmakers need to push the medium as far as it can go while staying grounded in human experience. You don’t experiment to show off; you experiment to dig deeper, to capture truths that traditional storytelling can’t. That’s the only way to make it matter.

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12. Are there any filmmakers or films that have profoundly shaped your perspective on cinema?

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Béla Tarr is the one who broke my chains. Watching his films showed me that cinema could be free—completely untethered from the tired rules of conventional storytelling. Every frame of his work is a rebellion against mediocrity, and that’s a lesson I carry with me. But beyond him, every film I’ve ever watched, good or bad, has shaped my perspective. Even the worst films teach you what not to do. And frankly, there’s a lot of bad cinema out there to learn from (specially now).