But as a university student, he realised that he wanted to make his own stories, not act in somebody else’s. He directed his first feature, Duck Neck, in 2016, and followed it with a short film, On the Border, in 2018, about a Chinese man of Korean descent who aspires to join South Korea, and it won the special jury award at the Cannes film festival. Since then, Wei has become the only Chinese director of his generation to be selected for Cannes three times, with his latest film shortlisted for the Un Certain Regard section.

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Wei is no stranger to resisting pressure to keep things simple. He shot on 16mm film, which he was advised would be difficult and expensive, not least because of the absence of laboratories in China that can process that type of film. But he insisted, and the result is a retro, grainy finish that adds to the film’s noir-style texture. Wei’s efforts paid off in China, where the film was a surprise hit in a box office normally dominated by nationalist blockbusters. The film netted 309m yuan (£34.1m) at the Chinese box office after it was released in October last year.