Accordingto Li Ruijun, it’s a minor miracle that his latest film, Return To Dust, ever got made. “It took me one year to write, one year to make, one year [of] postproduction,” the Chinese director explains of a pandemic-interrupted schedule that included the gruelling eight-month shoot split into five parts. Even before that, he had a devil of a job getting it financed. “The genre and the style of this film is not something very popular in terms of commercial potential,” he sighs. “The younger generation… I believe they like genre movies more.”