Directing duo Zhang & Knight have built a reputation for crafting worlds that feel both mystical and achingly human. Their new short film A Bear Remembers continues that trajectory — a haunting story about memory, loss, and the quiet beauty of cultural erosion. Featuring the voice of Ciarán Hinds, the film unfolds like a modern fable, rich with symbolism, sound, and cinematic elegance. We caught up with Zhang & Knight to talk about the inspirations behind the film, its folklore roots, and the spiritual landscape that defines their work.
What was the initial spark or idea that led you to A Bear Remembers?
The film actually began as an idea for a music video. We imagined a group of spirits whose last believer had just died. With no one left to remember or worship them, the spirits decide to leave the earth. They get into a spaceship and fly away!
No one ever picked up the concept, but the image lingered with us. There was something haunting about the thought of a spirit made irrelevant, forgotten. Over time, that image kept growing, and it eventually became the seed of A Bear Remembers.
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The film carries a strong enigmatic quality. Can you talk us through some of the themes that you wanted to explore with this story?
Our interest in the film is anchored in cultural loss: in the spaces where something once existed but no longer does. About the sad truth that, for many communities, erasure is permanent. What is lost cannot always be brought back.
It’s a theme that resonates with us on a personal level. Hannah’s mother was born to a Cypriot woman in the 1960s but was placed in the foster care system. Her name was deemed “too Muslim” and was Anglicised. Linden grew up as a half-Chinese person on the Welsh borders: very visibly different from those around him but feeling entirely British.
So the idea of culture and identity as something delicate and destructible is something that fascinates us both.
You found a terrific cast with Ciarán Hinds lending his voice to the bear. How did he become involved with the project?
Ciarán actually came on board after the film had already been shot and edited, and several members of crew had tried out a temporary voice for the bear. That process revealed what the voice could not be: not storybook, not twee. It also revealed what it needed to hold: a deep sadness, a sense of truth, and a whispered strength and dignity. The bear is an august spirit, but one who is beginning to unravel. We thought carefully about who could embody that balance, and Ciarán felt perfect.
We reached out and sent him a cut of the film, and to our delight he said yes. He had actually acted opposite Anna Calder-Marshall (Ebba) on stage before, and they had a wonderful rapport. In our letter we passed on her regards and the thought that it would mean a great deal to her to play opposite him again, even if separated by months and miles. Happily he agreed, and the result is something very special.
How did the idea of the bear emerge, and how did you approach its design?
Our first instinct was always that the spirit should be a bear. After a few months we challenged ourselves on that choice. What if it were a fox, or a hare, or a bird spirit? Yet none of those creatures carried the same symbolic weight. The bear once roamed these isles but has long since slipped into myth. But it lingers in British life, in coats of arms, in pub signs, and at the heart of popular culture with figures like Paddington and Winnie the Pooh.
So in the end it felt inevitable. The spirit had to be a bear, nothing else was right.
For the design, we wanted it to feel cosmic, otherworldly, and also rooted in folklore. We imagined villagers in the hills discovering the creature centuries ago and giving it a mask in the shape of a bear’s face, so they could better understand what they had seen. The long alien claws and the strange proportions, however, betray its true nature as something not of this world.
Sounds plays a crucial role in the film. What was the process when shaping the sound design and how did this add to the film’s atmosphere?
The very first person we showed the script to was our dear friend Jonathon Ng. He composed the music for the film, both the folk song that Ebba and the bear dance to and the score itself. We also created a playlist of our favourite strange music, filled with Meredith Monk and Akira Rabelais tracks. It was the music of spirits in the hills!
From there we remained in continuous dialogue with Jonathon, going back and forth with him throughout the writing process on what the music should sound like.
We spent a lot of time listening to clanging noises. Actually the noise of the bear’s pots were the biggest journey we went on. Early on we thought that they should sound more magical and more ethereal than just metal pots banging together. We looked at bells, and strange dissonant metallic sounds.
This continued right into the sound mix, with the fantastic Tim Burns. But you see, whenever the sound of the pots got too ‘cool’, then they started to sound like non-diegetic score, and not a noise that existed in the world that our characters could hear. So ultimately we brought it back to something very grounded: we just used the sound of two pots being banged together! Boring but right.
Can you share what artistic or cinematic references helped shape its visual approach?
We were very inspired by Fifth Generation Chinese cinema, especially films like Yellow Earth and Red Sorghum. We also looked closely at the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, particularly Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Those films feel like folk cinema with a spiritual soul, which resonated deeply with us. And of course, Studio Ghibli was a touchstone too. A friend once described A Bear Remembers as a live action Ghibli film for philosophical adults, which we thought was a perfect description!
We’d love to hear about your journey as filmmakers. What led each of you down this path and how did your creative partnership begin?
We first met at university, where we spent a lot of time watching films together. It was a formative period, full of shared discoveries. I still remember the first time we saw Farewell My Concubine. We both had the same reaction: “this is exactly what it feels like to be gay,” something we could never have articulated ourselves. That kind of shared recognition became the foundation of our bond.
At the time, Hannah wanted to write and Linden wanted to be a cinematographer. But through class assignments and personal projects, we realised how much we loved directing together. When we graduated, we decided not to head straight into fiction work. Instead we wanted to spend time honing our craft and finding our cinematic language. Music videos became the perfect playground. With no script to rely on, we learned to tell stories through music and image alone, gravitating towards directors like Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos, whose films say so much through atmosphere rather than dialogue.
From there we moved into commercials, which gave us the opportunity to experiment with equipment and techniques, and to understand how tools could be used to express ideas. Eventually, though, we felt the pull to tell deeper, longer stories. That desire led us back to fiction, and ultimately to A Bear Remembers.
What will you be working on next?
Our feature film! It’s set in the same universe: a mythic reimagining of modern Britain, filled with spirits and mysterious caves.