After graduating from the RMIT University in Australia, he went to the United States to study cinema at the American Film Institute, becoming the only Chinese student in the 28-member class studying film direction.

When he got the opportunity to shoot his first feature, he wanted to make it a bit personal, despite some investors wanting him to make a more commercial film.

"I graduated from the AFI near the end of 2013 and began to write the script in early 2014. I then polished the story for around a year."

When he took the project to the 13th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in 2015, a key hub for Chinese-language movies to raise money, his work won the top HAF award, drawing Tencent Penguin Pictures on board.

The film cost around 6 million yuan ($942,000), and Zhou and his crew visited nearly 100 taimen - typical Shaoxing courtyards that host several families under the same roof - to find the ideal location.

The movie was finally shot in a 200-year-old complex around 80 kilometers from downtown Shaoxing.

Recalling the start of the process of finding the filming location, Zhou says: "It was a rainy day. And one of our cars was involved in an accident.

"Only the art director and I arrived at the place. The scenery was amazing. And it suddenly made us feel that all the earlier efforts were worth it."

Water is a key element in End of Summer as most of the sequences occur near a river known as Xixiaohe (West Little River).

Referring to the importance of water, Zhou says that he believes that rivers, a geographically integral part of most of southeastern China, symbolize local life.

Although Zhou prefers to feature traditional elements in his works, he plans to look at futuristic themes, too.

Zhou says one of his upcoming projects is a sci-fi series to explore technology's influence on humankind.