Writer dons director's hat to turn novella into movie

"His unrealistic portrayals in his novellas are unique among Chinese authors, and the style is really good for film adaptation."

But Han's foray into directing has not been smooth.

The film was to be shot in Huangshi, Hubei province, because he wanted a terrace on the bank of the Yangtze River as his location, but the terrace was recently inundated by floodwaters.

As for how Jia came to be associated with the film, he says that in 2010 he launched his Wings Project to support promising new directors.

Originally, it had seven filmmakers from China and overseas. Han is the eighth one.

Meanwhile, the 2013 nostalgic art-house film Memories Look at Me, directed by Song Fang as part of Jia's project, was the lowest-grossing film among all publicly screened films on the Chinese mainland that year.

This was largely due to limited screening options and the absence of promotion.

The movie earned only 2,000 yuan ($302) at the box office.

But despite this poor showing by that film, Jia's project still has investors.

Yang Lei, the vice-president of Alibaba Pictures, affiliated to internet colossus Alibaba Group, which is a co-investor in Han's film, says: "In a film market filled with people thinking only of how to make money, such 'author films' give us another direction to follow.

"For these films, market performance is not the priority.

"We want to give enough space to these filmmakers to express themselves as another voice in Chinese cinema."

Han's film is scheduled to be released next year.