Chinese Filmmaker Spends a Decade and All Savings on Animated Feature
Sun Xun says 'Magic Atlas' was his definitive creative risk, funded by loans after the pandemic halted his art sales.
By Kenji Garnier ·
Chinese artist Sun Xun spent ten years and his entire personal fortune making an animated feature. The film, titled 'Magic Atlas,' has been selected for the competition section of the Tokyo International Film Festival. It marks the first time an animated feature has entered that specific contest at the festival.
The project was a financial gamble for Xun. During the pandemic, galleries closed and his art sales stopped. He had to find buyers on his own and take out loans to keep production moving. He described the film as his "all-in moment," a defining work that took everything out of him.
The story is set in Luocha, a coal-mining empire where flying is banned. Every sixty years, a festival causes the population to forget the previous era. A magician is arrested and meets an orphan boy in prison. He gives the boy a book called the Magic Atlas, which points toward a past the empire has tried to erase.
Xun shaped the visual style of the film by studying Dunhuang murals and Song dynasty painting. The movie mixes woodblock prints, ink painting, and vivid color. He said the images do the work that a conventional plot might spell out. He drew on art traditions from different periods and cultures to create the look.
The filmmaker said global events influenced the project. He cited the pandemic and the war in Ukraine as factors. He also mentioned his personal conversion to Buddhism. He wanted to finish the film before his child grew up and while his parents were alive. His father died one year before the film was completed.
Xun prefers a style that expresses a state of being over simple storytelling. He named Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr as filmmakers he admires. He said they are sincere in how they approach existence. He does not rely only on imagined narratives for commercial packaging.
Exhibitions connected to the film are planned for the United States and Singapore. Venues and dates have not been announced yet. Xun has also started a new feature called 'All or Nothing.' The Mandarin title is 'Fuyou,' which means 'Mayfly.'
The new film continues the world of 'Magic Atlas.' It moves from the broad theme of forgetting to an individual experience of memory loss. Xun filmed the first shot in an exhibition space in Hangzhou. He hopes to finish that feature within two years.
Source: Variety
