Experiencing Interruptions?

May I visit your world

While studying in Sydney, Chinese international student Eva is convinced her odd roommate Armstrong is an alien. To prove it, she brings in a student film crew to capture his awkward conversations, strange routines and quirky inventions on camera. However, as the shoot goes on, misunderstandings only push them further apart.
May I Visit Your World is a sci-fi mockumentary that blends deadpan comedy with gentle emotion, following two seemingly weird people trying to connect.

  • Fanrui Ren
    Director
  • En Zhang
    Director
  • En Zhang
    Writer
  • Fanrui Ren
    Producer
  • En Zhang
    Key Cast
    "Eva"
  • Ari Robertson
    Key Cast
    "Armstrong"
  • Fanrui Ren
    Director of Photography
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Mockumentary
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 3 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 23, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    1,700 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University of Sydney
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Fanrui Ren, En Zhang

Fanrui Ren:
Fanrui Ren is an international graduating student at the University of Sydney, pursuing a Master of Film and Screen Arts. He previously worked at the gaming company Tap-Tap as a promotional video editor and photographer.

Fanrui’s interest in the humanities began in high school, guiding him toward documentary filming. From 2019 to 2022, he worked in his university’s campus TV station, overseeing shooting, editing, and later serving as a department manager. He also creates found-footage videos inspired by films, anime, and games, accumulating over 200,000 views on BiliBili.

He received an award for a heartfelt advertisement for 999 Cold Remedy Granules in 2021. His 2023 documentary Packaging portrays a leather bag factory adapting and surviving through the COVID-19 pandemic. Fanrui aims to further develop innovative approaches to humanistic documentary storytelling.

En Zhang:
En Zhang is a Chinese filmmaker currently pursuing a Master of Film and Screen Arts at the University of Sydney. She previously studied illustration at Chuo University of Art in Japan and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Documentary from the Japan Institute of the Moving Image. Working across both film and comics, she focuses on character-driven visual storytelling, creating works that combine detailed imagery with a cross-cultural perspective.

Her documentary Yiyi and Mom (2024), which examines the lived experiences of married women in Inner Mongolia, received an Excellence Award at her university.

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Director Statement

Our project began when we discussed making a mockumentary about an alien hiding among humans, and that prompted us to ask ourselves: under this genre premise, what do we really want to share with the audience? When we started talking about how “an alien stranded alone in a foreign land would be so pitiful,” we almost simultaneously realised that what we truly wanted to tell was a story about how each individual searches for an answer — or an echo — within their own loneliness. That became the starting point of May I Visit Your World.

Loneliness is an emotion that lies very close to the human condition. Even when we are surrounded by people, there are moments when we clearly feel a subtle disconnection from the world around us. For us, the story has never been about “whether he is really an alien”, but about “two misfits finding a way to lean on each other.” We firmly believe that when someone sincerely reaches out and lays their heart bare to another person, the warmth of being understood and held can be felt — even if we can never fully comprehend each other.

To align with the mockumentary style, we used handheld and gimbal cinematography for the first part of the film. The camera operator’s off-screen voice interacts with the two characters, making this section feel more grounded in everyday life. The audio for the cameraman’s lines was specially processed to mimic the sound picked up by camera microphone. In editing the first half, we incorporated documentary-style jump cuts to handle portions of footage that ran too long, including two long-take shots. Initially, we thought long takes would better showcase the characters’ interactions, but after reviewing the footages , we felt the shots were overly lengthy and could potentially bore the audience.

At the end, we also experimented with using a letterboxing presentation. We lit the entire scene using three different types of lights to create a warm atmosphere. The editing rhythm and shot design followed traditional L-cuts and J-cuts, while the variety of shot sizes offered viewers different perspectives to observe the characters’ inner emotional journeys.

Overall, we learned that no matter how thorough pre-production work is, unexpected issues will always arise. But learning how to overcome these challenges is also one of the essential skills a director must possess.