# Online Gaming Drives the Search for a Missing Roommate in Dong Jie’s Venice Critics’ Week Debut ‘Zoom In, Zoom Out,’ Clip Unveiled (EXCLUSIVE)

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/online-gaming-drives-the-search-for-a-missing-roommate-in-dong-jies-venice-critics-week-debut-zoom-in-zoom-out-clip-unveiled-exclusive/
- Published: 2026-09-04T05:05:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-09-04T05:16:04+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/festivals/dong-jie-zoom-in-zoom-out-venice-critics-week-1236850367/
- Topics: Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, Film, Gaming, Paranormal, Weird & Viral

## Key points

- Dong Jie's debut "Zoom In, Zoom Out" premieres at Venice Critics' Week
- Film follows a search for a missing roommate via digital and gaming traces
- Production built a real in-house game instead of using VFX

## Summary

Chinese director Dong Jie's debut feature "Zoom In, Zoom Out" will premiere at the Venice Critics' Week, with Variety exclusively unveiling a clip from the film. The story follows Shi, a young game designer, as he searches for his missing roommate Gao, a quest that draws him closer to Gao's girlfriend YY as the pair piece together fragments of Gao's life through chat logs, an in-game avatar and other digital traces. Dong says he is less interested in the mechanics of the disappearance than in what it exposes about human connection, jealousy and self-absorption in an age of constant online contact.

The film stars Sun Yang and Zhao Tian'ai and was produced by Cao Shanshan of Do Something Films, with cinematography by Li Zhong, editing by Qin Yanan and a score by Hank Lee. It marks the feature debut of Dong, a Shanghai native and Beijing Film Academy graduate who previously edited "Summer Blur" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and whose thesis short "Break" screened at Pingyao and the Beijing International Short Film Festival. Notably, the production built its own functional video game for the film rather than using visual effects, a choice Dong says lent the missing character's avatar a rougher, more human quality that helped convey the emotion invested by the person behind the controls.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.