Separating Water From Water

神说：「诸水之间要有空气 ，将水分为上下。」

在封闭的空间里，吴实被抑郁的阴影笼罩，家人与爱人的碎片如幻象般浮现，冲撞着情感与信仰的边界……

究竟是什么，将我们彼此隔开？

And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”

In an enclosed room, Wu Shi is shrouded by the suffocating shadow of depression. Ghostly fragments of her family and a lost love drift around her like apparitions, each encounter eroding the fragile boundary between emotion and faith.

What, after all, keeps us apart?

导演：谷璐莹
编剧：谷璐莹
主演：谷璐莹、乐盖曦、刘郑伊
制片人：高梦苒、谷璐莹
摄影：黄慧怡
类型：纪录剧情短片
时长：14分钟
完成时间：2025年
对白语言：汉语普通话、法语
地区：中国
制片公司：两手同利

Director: Luying GU
Screenwriter: Luying GU
Cast: Luying GU, Clarisse Le Guernic, Zhengyi LIU
Producer: Mengran GAO, Luying GU
Cinematographer: Huiyi HUANG
Genre: Documentary Narrative Short Film
Length: 14 min
Year: 2025
Dialogue: Mandarin Chinese, French
Region: China
Production Company: Ambidextrous

谷璐莹，跨领域的表演者和创作者。本科毕业于中国美术学院动画与影视系，后在巴黎取得艺术指导硕士学位。通过现实情境中的超现实景观，映射个体生活与社会关系之间的夹层状态，创作媒介涵盖文本、影像、动画、装置等。近期，她的作品聚焦于东亚酷儿身份在多元文化冲击中的交织与变革，探讨文化碰撞中身份的流动性与复杂性。

Luying GU, a cross-disciplinary performer and creator. Gu earned her bachelor’s degree from the Animation and Film Department at the China Academy of Art, followed by a master’s degree in Art Direction in Paris. Through surreal landscapes within real-world contexts, she maps the liminal state between individual existence and social relations, employing media ranging from text and video to animation and installation. Recently, her work has focused on the intersections and transformations of East Asian queer identities amid multicultural dynamics, delving into the fluidity and complexity of identity within cultural collisions.

一切始于疫情时代那个饥肠辘辘的夜晚——食物与爱的双重缺失，成为一个再也无法摆脱的主题。我们被隔绝在墙内，在愤怒、压抑与悲伤中反复挣扎，直至渐渐麻木。外部的世界，恍若一场幻觉，被巨大的幻象吞噬。我想讲述的，正是那段时期我们所有人的共同遭遇。

家庭，作为最小的单位，承载着集权化的控制；宗教的介入，则进一步加深了对人们思想的极端束缚；而当这种控制上升为空气中无形的体制之手，它便成为随时可能落下的巴掌。正如母亲对你许诺的爱，哪怕她真心实意，那也不是孩子眼中的真相。真相，往往只在被戳穿的瞬间才真正显现。

这部影片试图通过回溯断裂的关系，探索人性与情感的复杂纹理。通过追溯家庭、宗教与社会的多重束缚，表达个体在宏大社会背景中的困境与挣扎。

It all began on that famished night during the pandemic, when the deprivation of food echoed the absence of love–a void that could never be filled. Trapped behind walls, we wrestled with rage, grief, and suffocating silence until numbness dulled our senses. The outside world seemed like a hallucination, a vast illusion devouring us. This film is my attempt to give shape to what we all endured during that suspended time.

The family, as the smallest cell of society, bears the seed of authoritarian control. Religious intervention further deepens this hold, extending into the realm of thought. And when this control dissolves into the air, becoming an invisible hand of the system, it hovers like a slap that could fall at any moment. Even a mother’s vow of love, however sincere, is not always the truth as seen through the child’s eyes. Truth often only truly reveals itself in the instant it is exposed.

Through this film, I seek to probe the intricate tapestry of human nature and emotion by revisiting fractured relationships. Through tracing the multifaceted constraints of family, religion, and society, the film portrays the predicaments and struggles of the individuals within the grand tapestry of social context.