Hello!

My name is Shu Zhu and I’m a Chinese-Canadian Filmmaker. My creative partner G Wilson and I have been working on a narrative film project since 2019 called Ash Valley. With the help of dedicated collaborators, we're closer than ever to bringing it to life. To showcase this world we've created, we're shooting a standalone short film at the end of February, but we need your support to bring our vision fully to fruition. Join us in bringing Ash Valley to the screen by helping us close our fundraising campaign for this exciting project.

Thank you for your time! We appreciate your support!

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Amidst the utopian industrial landscape of the future, mysterious occurrences shroud the expansive oil fields and its refinery. What dark secrets lurk beneath, waiting to be uncovered?

Logline

As the animals in a state-run oil field exhibit bizarre behavior, a fearless veterinarian embarks on a mission to uncover the root cause and confront the towering authority of the oil refinery.

Story

In a post-Soviet oilfield, death and mutation spread amongst the people and animals. A veterinarian investigating the cause of livestock stillbirths is met with resistance from the state-run oil refinery. As she delves deeper, she uncovers disturbing evidence of contamination and is warned to stop her investigation for her own safety. But when her own daughter falls ill, she must weigh the risk of uncovering the truth against her daughter's well-being. A mysterious man offers a choice: abandon her investigation and erase all evidence, or risk losing her daughter forever. The fate of the town rests on her decision, as horrors lurk around every corner in the shadow of the oilfield. Will she uncover the truth, or succumb to the forces of darkness?

Why This Film?

The core of the project is a contemplation of decay and rebirth, chaos and order, the relationship between individuals and the environment around us, both natural and institutional. As the world faces the growing threat of climate change, Ash Valley serves as a cautionary tale of what could happen if we don’t take action. It shows that when the environment is neglected and ignored by those in power, it has a huge, often disastrous, impact on the citizens and animals that depend on it. The story serves as a metaphor for the destruction that can be caused by human-caused disasters, and the mutations to local plants and animals demonstrate the unpredictable consequences of the climate crisis. We aim to expose the ugliness and corruption of existing structures of power in institutions that allowed the climate crisis to hit the critical moment it is facing today. The project's emphasis on spiritual awakening also highlights the importance of looking beyond climate change as a physical crisis and understanding it as a social, spiritual, and emotional issue as well, highlighting the need for both physical and emotional responses.

Director’s Statement

I grew up in Northeastern China in an oil town called Daqing. My grandparents' generation moved here and built it from the ground up to become the largest oil field in China. The city flourished with the oil boom, but oil production has been in slow decline since the last decade. Young people, including myself, have all moved out of the city to avoid the harsh climate and pursue brighter opportunities in bigger cities, leaving the old generations of oil workers in their “empty nest”. The once fertile soil seems to be decaying. It breaks my heart. 

The narrative is a close metaphor to what is currently going on in my hometown, as well as many industrial cities around the globe. As the advent of new technology and business opportunities drive people to leave once fertile lands, it is hard to ignore the slow death of our home and abandonment of our heritage. 

However, that said “heritage” might be exploitative to begin with. Perhaps what is needed to evolve is to cast aside toxic traditions, patriarchal values, exploitations of the Earth, and let the past be laid to rest. New possibilities will inevitably take its place, as represented through physical mutation and spiritual ascension. Decay can be a cycle that leads to rebirth

We want to examine the theme of decay, rebirth and environmentalism through the allegorical story. The setting of the narrative world is all encompassing and we wanted to explore storytelling at scale, with each character that exists in the town has a potential story of their own in their journey to navigate through personal decay and rebirth. Ash Valley: Prologue presents a unique character that takes on an investigator’s role to showcase the mysteries of this world for the audience.

Through the authentic portrayal of each individual’s journey in fragments, we paint a larger picture of the grand cosmic mystery in an extremely localized setting.

Look and Feel

Influenced by Cinema Verite and Dogme 95, we will embrace the aesthetic of low budget filmmaking to further enhance the authenticity presented in the visual language. Much like the visual language of Dogme 95, we will embrace the imperfections and artifice presented in the process of filmmaking.

Employing similar techniques to Under the Skin, the film will use expressionistic experimental sequences interspersed within the narrative to create a disjointed and uncomfortable experience, playing with the duality of real and surreal, authenticity and artifice. With the inherent phantasmagorical nature of the story, the film will be hyper-realistic and surreal at the same time. 

The film aims to be raw, jarring, and confrontational. As the world within the film undergoes a cycle of decay and rebirth, I hope the audience will go through the same experience. 

Project History

Ash Valley is an official selection of International Film Festival & Awards Macau Project Market (organized by IFFAM and XYZ Films), BIFAN Industry Gathering (largest genre film market in Asia) and Udine Far East Film Festival’s FocusAsia Project Market. Ash Valley is also a recipient of the Research and Creation grant from Canada Council for the Arts. While the project was met with much enthusiasm, we faced tremendous censorship pressure from China, as it was where we originally set out to shoot. With the support from producers Anderson Le, Sultan Pirzhan, and Maksat Bolotbek, we discovered Kyrgyzstan to be a viable shooting location which shares a similar history and aesthetics to my hometown, which allows us to create while maintaining artistic integrity. 

Team Bio

Shu Zhu - Director / Co-Writer

Shu is a graduate from American Film Institute’s MFA Directing Program and holds a BFA from New York University in Film and TV Production. With a special interest on rebellious expressions regarding social and cultural norms and identity, Shu has created works that have been showcased at prestigious festivals and institutions around the world, such as Telluride Film Festival, National Museum of Art in Mexico, National Film Archive of India, Jia Zhangke Art Center, among others. Shu's interest in experimentation of the medium led him to the forefront of intersection between art and technology, having served as Creative Director for Shanghai Mokai Technologies developing cyberpunk animation for iQiYi.

G Wilson - Co-Writer

Raised in the sin and excess of Las Vegas, G. Wilson developed a tendency for the strange early on. After writing and producing a slew of warped comedy and horror content, he earned his MFA in Screenwriting from the AFI Conservatory. His short films have been screened at over 35 international film festivals. His screenplays have placed in a number of competitions including the Austin Film Festival, Screencraft, Launch Pad, Cinestory, and Filmmatic. His latest short film, “Dinner is Served,” is now streaming on Disney+. He currently leads a creator’s room in Rob McElhenney's (It's Sunny in Philadelphia) new venture, Adimverse.

Anderson Le - Executive Producer

Anderson Le diligently works in the global promotion of independent and world cinema as Artistic Director of the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF). In addition to his duties at HIFF, Le also serves as a program consultant for several film festivals including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, focusing on international and gala presentations; the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, where he is in charge of the annual documentary sidebar and Southeast Asian selections. Previously, he has consulted with Singapore International Film Festival and Reel Asian in Toronto. Le previously worked as the international programmer for Comcast, working in providing monthly content for Xfinity on Demand with a focus on Asian and Asian American content. He recently co-founded a US/ Vietnam joint venture called EAST, a transpacific production company producing global content.

Sultan Pirzhan - Producer

Originally from Kyrgyzstan, Sultankazy Pirzhan uulu started his career in 2011 as a line producer and staff writer of Comedy Competition Show Asia Mix. During his two years with the show, he successfully produced many quarterly live shows with thousands in attendance.

As an advocate for equity and justice in film, Sultan founded SP Film Production, through which he has consulted on several international projects and successfully produced a slate of narrative and documentary films—including Shaun Vivaris’s feature Lisa Mania.

Maksat Bolotbek - Producer

Maksat Bolotbek is a veteran in the film industry in Central Asia. He is the co-founder of Bairak Productions based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Maksat is a successful artist, designer and illustrator. He is also the proud owner of three Ak Ilbirs statuettes - the National Film Award of Kyrgyzstan.

Mboni Maumba - Production Designer

Mboni Mau is a Tanzanian-Chinese filmmaker based in Los Angeles. As production designer, she is a two-time Student Oscars winner for The Chef’19 and Shedding Angels’21. Her film Arabian Alien’20 premiered at Sundance and won best narrative at the Atlanta Film Festival. Her first feature film, The Listener’22, directed by Steve Buscemi and starring Tessa Thompson premiered at The Venice Film Festival, Giornate Degli Autori section as the closing night film. Her second feature - The Tuba Thieves, following a deaf drummer’s life for 11 years and filmed in American Sign Language premieres at Sundance 2023. 

Gemma Doll-Grossman - Director of Photography

Gemma Doll-Grossman is an LA-based cinematographer. She graduated from AFI Conservatory in 2019 with an MFA in Cinematography. She was a cinematography fellow of Film Independent's Project Involve 2022.

She has lensed films which have premiered at Venice, SXSW, Maryland, and AFI Film Festivals.

Her features are currently in post-production: Francisco Ordoñez's erotic crime thriller The Low End Theory, Seabold Kreb's psychological drama Bury Me When I'm Dead  and Matt Hardy's Dogme 95-inspired Bare.

A San Franciscan with Wesleyan dual degrees in Film and Biology, Gemma is fluent in Italian. She is committed to capturing untapped perspectives, utilizing experimental techniques, and exploring sexuality, grief and body horror.

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Future Roadmap

Ash Valley (Prologue) is part one of a multistage transmedia narrative project. We are experimenting with many things to push the boundary of narrative medium both in content and form. You can learn more here.