The work-stay: Amsterdam

Hao Zhou and Tomer Heymann at IDFA

In November 2024, the filmmaker Hao Zhou and his mentor, documentarist Tomer Heymann, met in Amsterdam for a condensed work-stay, where they finetuned Zhou's film edit and networked during the IDFA film festival.

Hailing from southwest China, filmmaker Hao Zhou explores queer and feminist stories in peripheral spaces. In his latest and most personal documentary project Correct Me If I’m Wrong, Zhou turns the camera to his own family as its members confront his deviation from expectations as their sole male heir. To challenge their contempt, which he recognizes as concern motivated by care, Zhou indulges his family’s wish to rid him of everything they hate and fear.

In their mountainous town, his grandmother and other family members expose him to a series of mystical interventions to transform his body, mind, spirit, and fate. As this arduous pursuit exposes tensions and traumas amid all participants, will the family end up being the ones who are transformed?