Shanghai IFF 2026: Atlantic Rhapsody | Interview with Zhong Kaifeng

The 28th Shanghai International Film Festival Golden Goblet Award for Best Feature Film went to deserving hand of debutante writer-director Zhong Kaifeng. His first feature film Atlantic Rhapsody, which also deservedly won Best Cinematography for HAO JiaYue, is an artistic fantasy combining striking surrealist visuals, meditative explorations of the passage of time with the search for a human connection in the centre.

Atlantic Rhapsody begins with a painting-like scene – a plate of food on a green felt tablecloth – that is soon turned into a surrealist horror when the protagonist spits out a nail after chewing his food. But Atlantic Rhapsody doesn’t dive into the darkness of its first image. Instead, it is just an introduction into the unexpected framing, colouring, imagery and exploration of time that Zhong uses to tell his story.

An exciting work of art from a newcomer, Atlantic Rhapsody is a moving contemporary tale of detachment, loneliness and alienation. The characters speak in a unique, vestigial language and their journey is depicted through dystopian imagery, camcorder aesthetic and a return to nature.

We spoke to the director about the film.

Ramona: Atlantic Rhapsody is your debut feature. Tell me about your inspiration for the story and the visual look of the film.

ZHONG Kaifeng: The story started with a news story from Shenyang in 2005 when a supermarket that kept a shark in a display tank accidentally cooked it alive and they started selling the shark meat. People lined up for blocks. It became a city-wide event. The accident became a collective memory for an entire city. I found it absurd, but also somewhat melancholic – like a ritual marking the end of an era. That was an important source of inspiration.

Visually, I wanted the film to have a sense of “rupture.” This rupture includes the visuals, the performances, even the music. Visually, I wanted the son’s story to be distorted, theatrical, stage-like. I almost wanted it to feel like a 2D film. Because his reality in itself is uncertain and disconnected.

The father’s story, by contrast, is grittier, more handheld, more like fragments of memory, even though he’s an imagined father. I wanted his face, his body to feel closer to the audience. As for the Japanese girl’s section, her story is the least credible, but visually I wanted it to be the most objective, neutral, without any attitude. These three visual distinctions form the film’s language.

R: What was your production journey in making this movie as a debutant?

Z: I started developing this film in 2020 and we didn’t begin shooting until February 2024. Over those four years, I participated in many film labs and pitch forums, and the script kept going through revisions. After that, I spent another two years in post-production. The film wasn’t officially completed until May 2026. It was a long journey. Fortunately, I met my key crew and producers who believed in me and believed in this film. We made it together.

R: Atlantic Rhapsody is a visually striking film. Very memorable and engaging. Sometimes uncomfortable. How did you choose this visual style?

Z: I found myself very attached to the idea of “shooting two eras with two different textures”. The discomfort, I think, comes from my attempt to keep the audience in a state of “not knowing what this is”. I wanted the audience to feel, along with Ding Mao, something that’s hard to name but definitely present.

R: It’s not my first time to encounter the search for sound in a movie, but it’s not very common either. What was your inspiration behind incorporating it in your story?

Z: Before making films, I was in an experimental music band. We liked to create unconventional sounds. That experience taught me that sound can evoke irrational feelings, excitement or unease. I wanted this film to work the same way and for the audience’s experience to be irrational as well. Beyond that, sound is the most honest carrier of memory. Images can be manipulated, forgotten, but once a sound stays in your mind, it’s very hard to replace it with anything else. So, I decided to make sound the core of the film.

R: Memory is a very important aspect of the film and the fragmentation of reality that it causes for the main character. Why was this important for building your character?

Z: The fragmentation of memory corresponds exactly to how he understands the world. He doesn’t analyse through logic, he perceives through his senses. He hears a sound, he sets off; he sees a missing-person notice, he keeps going. He doesn’t have a complete picture, he can only imagine and piece things together from other people’s stories. Isn’t that how it is for all of us, when it comes to a past we were never present for?

R: The incident of the shark is what begins the character journey and it is a major motif in the story. What relevance was the shark to you? Why did you choose the shark in particular.

Z: As I mentioned earlier, in that news story, an ocean apex predator appeared in a landlocked city’s supermarket to be watched and to be eaten. That itself creates a natural tension. Beyond that, the film draws many parallels between the shark and the father. A shark’s teeth keep growing corresponding to the father’s regrowing teeth. Sharks excrete through their skin corresponding to the smell of urine after the father falls ill. Some sharks need to keep swimming constantly and once they stop, they die – just like the father in the film, full of life force, never stopping.

R: Several characters embody shifting identities. How do these changes reflect the film’s themes of dislocation and transformation?

Z: Social change inevitably leads to changes in identity. That’s the basic premise of how I understand this question. Most of the characters in the film have experienced transformations of their era. Beyond that, Ding Mao himself grew up in a state of dislocation. He lives in the south, but his father comes from the northeast. He knows nothing about his father, yet he’s drawn back to the northeast by a sound. His identity itself is fractured. He doesn’t know where he’s from, or where he’s going.

R: Would you say that the surrealist style is something that is natural and understandable in contemporary Chinese cinema? Why did you choose it as your stylistic language?

Surrealism as a narrative approach tends to emerge naturally today, not because it’s trendy, but because our reality itself has become increasingly difficult to describe through purely realist means.

For me, this approach was the most fitting one for Atlantic Rhapsody. When the core of a story is itself one of dislocation: the past and present overlapping, memory and reality intermingling, people not residing on the same timeline as themselves, then the way the story is told should maintain that same sense of dislocation.

R: How did you prevent surreal elements from overwhelming the emotional core of the father-son narrative?

Z: Let me give you an example: the carnival scene at the end – the room transforms into a train carriage, people are eating shark meat, and the father’s reflection appears in a mirror. All of this is surreal, but it all points to Ding Mao’s most complex and powerless moment. He finally “sees” his father, but there’s a layer of glass between them. He can’t touch him. The surrealism doesn’t overwhelm the emotion; it amplifies that sense of unreachable distance. You can never step into his time; you can only imagine your father’s experiences from within your own timeline.

R: You’ve received the Golden Goblet at the Shanghai Film Festival. Congratulations! How does it feel and what does it mean to you to start of your filmmaking portfolio with such an honour?

Thank you. I think this is the greatest recognition for the entire team. For me personally it means that now I can go make my next film. That’s the most important thing.

The 28th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) took place from June 12 to 21, 2026.