Director Zoe Zhou's film, WE ARE HAPPY FISH (2025), is described as "a nihilistic girl escapes from her family with a robot boy to revive a dead fish", which by itself is interesting and accurate. But it only nibbles at how wild, zany, carefree the film is.

Zoe also pushes back at the idea that film school would ever take the edges off her work. In this film, she does an amazing job blending "surrealism, dark humor, and social commentary", as she states for her goal, and I'll be the first person in line to watch whatever is next.

In this episode, Zoe and I talk about:

was this the same basic story of when it started?
why the Toronto Metropolitan University?
were the interests of " blending surrealism, body horror, dark humor, and social commentary" shaped by film school?
her philosophy on casting;
why the Future of Film Showcase and why Toronto?;
what's next for her and what draws her to bloody and horror.

Zoe's Indie Film Highlight: WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES (2019) dir. by Makoto Nagahisa; AND SO WE PUT GOLDFISH IN THE POOL (2017)

Memorable Quotes:

" For my style, I usually make like very bloody or like Japanese cult kind of stuffs before this short film."

" I think school always trying to protect the students from doing dangerous stuff, so I'm always kinda pushing the boundaries from the classes.

Links:

Follow Zoe On Instagram

IMA Film student wins Best Film at MDFF Selects Student Showcase 2025