52nd edition of New Directors/New Films
Festival&Award
A Story About Fire
燃比娃
China | Animation, Fantasy, Adventure | 85min
Director: Wenyu Li
Chief Producer: Bo Chen
Producer: Anyi Wang
导演：李文愉
制片：王安忆
Synopsis
This film is adapted from an ancient mythology of Qiang people, which is one
of the minority ethnic groups in China. It tells the story of a monkey who grew up in an ancient human tribe and headed towards the Holy Mountain to seek the secret of “warmth”. After going through hardships and perils, he got the fire stone from the mouth of the “beast of fear”. His hair was burned off and he became a human being after Nirvana.
Director's Note
The story originates from an ancient Qiang myth( a minority ethnic groups in China). Myths often inspired of simple lives. We hope to express the two major historical significance: the human being’s evolution and the fire civilization, for exploring the possibilities of the truth behind the myth through the infinite imagination of animation.
The aesthetic of the story is plain, primitive and wild. Therefore, we choose to use the traditional Chinese traditional painting style to present the film. We used the water ink brush strokes, shading from monotone to colorful, to convey the emotional changes of the characters.
For the production, we adopted a variety of experimental animation techniques. The visual style is full of imagination, breaking the limitation of perspective, structure and space, which showing the possibilities of 2D animation，and the unique charm of the experimental hand-drawn art.
This film is an combination of traditional oriental elements and modern artistic aesthetics.
Wenyu Li
He achieved his Master Degree of Computer Animation in Peking University. His mentor was Ma Kexuan, the director of Feeling from Mountain and Water. He is now a professor of Animation of Digital Art at the Art College of Sichuan University. His works have won the Best Animated Short Film Award in Warsaw International Film Festival and selected by the Academy Award, Cannes International Film Festival, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and other festivals.