“How far are you willing to go to get recognition from society?” That’s the heart of The Parking Spot, and it has everything to do with director Louis Godbout’s previous life as a philosophy professor.

The film, up for a Golden Goblet Award at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival, begins with a seemingly trivial dispute over a parking space. However, as Godbout tells CGTN, it quickly spirals into an examination of human behavior, questions Hegel himself once posed.  

The conversation eventually turns to social media, but Godbout is not interested in assigning value to the medium. For him, what matters is the idea, the script and whether the story is worth telling. He is still asking the same questions, just not in the classroom anymore. Now, he invites moviegoers to join him in his quest for life’s deeper truths.