Secret Beyond the Door
How far would you go to help someone in need?
ABOUT
Security guard Mary is on patrol at a local apartment complex when she sees a tenant, Jack, trying to hang himself in his apartment. Noticing her, he quickly closes the window as she is about to intervene.
After talking to her colleague, Mary learns that Jack often engages in strange behavior around the complex. Driven by curiosity, Mary begins to closely monitor Jack’s every move.
After one final encounter, the police are called to the scene and discover that all of this was a ridiculous farce engineered by Jack to find inspiration for his writing.
YEAR 2023
RUN TIME 9:31 Min
EMAIL liyirick@gmail.com Website: Portfolio | Vimeo
CAST & CREW CREDITS
WRITER-DIRECTOR Rick Li
PRODUCER Steven Zhu
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jiangshan Li
ASSISTANT CAMERA Jiapeng Xiang
SOUND MIXER Hao Sun
EDITOR Rick Li
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS Breeze Hu
PRINCIPAL CAST
Sarah Cole | Chris Ware
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
As a fan of suspense movies and thrillers, my work explores the intriguing coincidences, misunderstandings, and plot twists that occur in everyday life. My approach is always to explore a story from the emotional perspectives of different characters.
The idea for “Secret Beyond The Door” came from a personal experience I had in which security guards misunderstood what they saw on a monitoring screen, leading to a comedy of errors. This experience motivated me to recreate this farce into a story that people can relate to.
Surveillance video, for all of its beneficial uses, has limitations due to its single viewpoint and silent images, making it difficult to convey the full context of a situation. Therefore, viewers of security footage tend to add their own imagination to the image, leading to different interpretations of the story.
My film delves into the truth behind the camera and shows how our perception of images that lack context can lead to endless speculation. “Secret Beyond the Door” begins with seemingly mundane incidents and analyzes them from the viewpoint of a bystander, gradually leading the audience into the characters’ minds, delving into their differences in personality and in the kind of information they have about each other—resulting in unexpected developments. It explores the creative possibilities of visual storytelling, inviting the audience to question their perceptions of reality and imagination.
DIRECTOR BIO
Yi (Rick) Li is a filmmaker, cinematographer, photographer and visual artist living and studying in Baltimore. He enjoys capturing rare and wonderful images and interacting with viewers through the medium of film. He is inspired by iconic directors including Wong Kar-wai, Jiang Wen, Fruit Chan, Zhang Yimou, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Rick holds a BA in Digital Media and will earn his MFA in Filmmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2023. Prior to grad school, he was an intern animator at Hunan Broadcasting System.
INTERVIEWS
FILM AND PRODUCTION STILLS
AWARDS
FULL FILM
Currently under 2-year embargo (2025)
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Yi (Rick) Li is a filmmaker, cinematographer, photographer and visual artist living and studying in Baltimore. He enjoys capturing rare and wonderful images and interacting with viewers through the medium of film. He is inspired by iconic directors including Wong Kar-wai, Jiang Wen, Fruit Chan, Zhang Yimou, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Rick holds a BA in Digital Media and will earn his MFA in Filmmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2023. Prior to grad school, he was an intern animator at Hunan Broadcasting System.
(Update provided in May 2023)