Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, founder of the 86358 Film Festival, speaks at this year’s opening ceremony, on Aug 23, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Short but pithy – that's what I think of short films," said Jia. "Because of the short form, they can be more flexible than features and can capture the pulse of the times in a swifter manner."

Jia himself made Visit, a four-minute film for a project commissioned by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in April. The work focuses on the quirks and sounds associated with human interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Short films can stand alone as a genre," Jia contends. "Shooting short films is not merely a path leading to feature-length films or an approach adopted by film academies to train students".

Brief in length, a short film is still a complete one.

"That means short film directors must work ingeniously, making the most of the limited length," Jia continued. "They have to deal with questions like, how to structure a short film, how to make transitions, and what to keep and what to leave out."