Hu Bo was only 29 years old when he committed suicide. Born in 1988 in Jinan, his background was modest. He struggled at school but developed a strong interest in film and fiction. After moving to Beijing at the age of 18, his talent was recognized in his initial efforts to get admitted to the Beijing Film Academy, but also thwarted by his inability to pass the national college entrance examinations. In 2010, he was finally accepted into the Directing Department, and he graduated in 2014. However, he was disappointed to discover that the Beijing Film Academy, once a bastion for art cinema, had become a training ground for commercial genre films. After graduating, he turned to writing fiction and scripts. He published two well-received books in Taiwan under the pen name Hu Qian. One of his scripts attracted the attention of Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai when it was submitted in 2016 to the script pitching competition at FIRST film festival in Xining, China’s specialist festival for young filmmakers. Although the script he submitted was not for An Elephant Sitting Still, this was the seed that led to the ill-fated project.