Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film, a Powerful Meta-Cinematic Drama

A powerful, self-reflective drama directed by Lou Ye, An Unfinished Film explores the act of filmmaking itself against the backdrop of sudden global upheaval. Known for his intimate, boundary-pushing work (Suzhou River, Summer Palace), Lou Ye brings his signature realism and emotional restraint to a story shaped by uncertainty and interruption.

Set in Wuhan, the film follows a director and his cast and crew as they attempt to resume production on a long-abandoned film. As shooting begins, the outbreak of COVID-19 rapidly transforms daily life, forcing production into lockdown and fracturing the line between fiction and reality. Through fragments of footage, remote communication and unfinished scenes, the film becomes a meditation on art, isolation and human connection in a moment of collective crisis - capturing not just a halted production, but a world suspended in time.

Blurring documentary and fiction, the film unfolds through fragments, interruptions and moments of quiet observation, reflecting the instability of the period it captures. As communication shifts to screens and physical distance reshapes human connection, An Unfinished Film becomes as much about absence as presence. Through this restrained, fragmentary structure, Lou Ye examines how creativity persists under pressure, and how unfinished work can still hold emotional and historical truth.