Feinaki Beijing Animation Week
Best of Feinaki (Beijing, China) - Young Filmmakers from China
Thursday, 30. 9. 2021 / 12.00 / Vetrinj mansion, big hall
Feinaki Beijing Animation Week was first organized in 2019. It is an animation festival curated by the internationally well-connected Chinese animation artists, researchers, and curators who frequently travel between animation festivals across the world. The organizers' efforts are dedicated to inspire and encourage independent animation artists, present their works for the purpose of continuous exposure and becoming more internationally received, as to promote a more prosperous national ecosystem for animation creatives. The programme consisting of the most recent achievements of the youngest Chinese animators was curated specifically for StopTrik IFF by the Feinaki festival's Artistic Director, Ms. Yantong Zhu.
Total runtime: 71'30''
Sparky / Xiaolingzi / 《小灵子》
Dian Liang
2018, USA/PRC, 4'20''
Sparky likes to gaze out of the window to see every possible or impossible thing.
Dian Liang
Born in 1992, Wuxi, China. Dian got her Master’s degree from California Institute of the Arts, majored in Experimental Animation in the year of 2018. During her stay at CalArts, she was awarded the Jules Engel Grant by the Experimental Animation Department. Her thesis film “Sparky”won the Best U.S. Film at GLAS Animation Festival (2019) and the Best Experimental Film at Brooklyn’s Animation Block Party (2018). With a strong unique style, her animated films had been screened at various international film festivals like Slamdance Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival, Encounters Film Festival etc. Earlier in her career, she was also on team Ornana animating music video for “A Girl in the Yellow Dress”, commissioned by former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour for his latest album. By 2019, the music video has got 4 million plays on Youtube. Currently she is based in Shanghai, China and thriving to bring more art for the world to enjoy.
Time! Time! Time! / Shijian! Shijian! Shijian! / 《时间！时间！时间！》
Haoming Peng
2018, PRC/USA, 2'2''
The intangible concept of time might be finally within our grasp, when a clumsy speech is given by a philosophy professor regarding Bill Viola’s works.
Haoming Peng
Haomin Peng (1996, Guangzhou, China) is an artist who mainly works with media art, including videos, animations, films and new media. Seeing time as the most foundational element, he attempts to make artworks that question human experience and cognition on moving images, uses time-based media as a confrontation between mortality and individuality. His works are made with a variety of approaches. Beside live-action film-making, he also proficient in creating 2-D and 3-D, hand-made and digital animation. New-media techniques such as game-designing and 3D projection mapping can also be found in his works. During his stay at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he was awarded the Barbara Zenner Award for Outstanding New Artist in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation by the Department of Contemporary Practices. Haomin Peng currently lives and works in Chicago, U.S and Guangzhou, China, works both as a freelance video-maker and a commissioned artist.
Petty Thing / Xiaoshi / 《小事》
Zexi Li (China Academy of Art)
2019, PRC, 3'46''
The summer afternoon was no special, until the kids, also gun fight lovers, hung around in the village and found a replica pistol. As the trigger was pulled, the whole wood was awakened.
Zexi Li
Li Zexi was born in Fujian province, China, 1996. In 2019, he graduated from China Academy of Art.
Sweater / Maoyi / 《毛衣》
Zilai Feng (Calarts)
2019, PRC/USA, 2'
Inspired by the short story "Don't You Blame Anyone" by Julio Cortazar.
Zilai Feng
Zilai Feng graduated from the Character Animation program at California Institute of the Arts 2017, and is now pursuing MFA for animation at USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The Coin / Yingbi / 《硬币》
Siqi Song
2019, USA/PRC, 6'40''
In Chinese New Year, finding the coin hidden inside of the dumplings means having a blessed year ahead. Anan loses a jar on her journey to a new country, which contains the lucky coins she has been collecting growing up. Her new life begins with a search to find the coin.
Siqi Song
Siqi Song is an Oscar-Nominated animation director from China, currently based in California, United States. The films she wrote and directed have screened internationally at numerous film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, Ottawa, and more. She is named a Film Independent Directing Fellow in 2018, BAFTA Los Angeles Newcomer in 2019, and nominated for an Oscar and an Annie Award for her short film SISTER in 2020. Song studied at the California Institute of the Arts and China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Half of an Apple / Shi'er yue / 《十二月》
Xiaolin Zhou (Tama Art University)
2020, JPN, 4'19''
Inspired by the artist's own experience with her twin sister. Made in the paper-cut technique, the film continues and expands the greatest traditions of Chinese animated film.
Zhou Xiaolin
Zhou Xiaolin was Born in China in 1993. She graduated from Jiangnan University, Department of Animation in 2015. She received master’s degree from Tama Art University, Department of Graphic Design in 2019
Puzzle
Xiangyu Shi (Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts)
2019, PRC, 4'13''
The film explores the initial cognition of gender, the meditation for life, and the influence of parents' divorce during the director's childhood.
Xiangyu Shi
Animation is the method to articulate my ideas just like words are the method for writers to articulate their thoughts. My work is often inspired by my life experiences. When I was little, I was sensitive to the relationship with people around me. Feelings are like invisible flowing lines connecting people, then I would turn these emotions to visual drawings. That’s why capturing feelings is an essential element in my work. I grew up with this skill, as I am obsessed with films and photography, my work becomes more diversified in visual language. I strive to push the boundaries of animation. For me, It’s always the story that drives the medium. I attempt to use different mediums in my creative process. Photo collages, stitching, stop motion, traditional hand-drawn animation in papers... even a rock or a leaf could be the elements in my works. The textures create visually tactile quality based on everyday objects. Everything in the natural world has a consistency as the Buddism philosophy elaborated. So I believe we are all connected with everything around the world in some way. I strive to find the specific connections between the audience and my work, raising questions like gender identity to make the audience think. (Chloe Xiangyu Shi)
Strawberry Candy / Caomei tang / 《草莓糖》
Nianze Li (Tokyo University of the Arts)
2020, JPN, 6'41''
She has an unspeakable secret but the memory is gradually fading. The little girl is no longer sure if it was a dream or reality.
Nianze Li
Nianze Li was born in China in 1995. She graduated from Sichuan Fine Art Institute New Media Art Department in 2017 and from the Department of Animation at Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media in 2020.
The Big Tree in front of the House / Menqian you da shu / 《门前有大树》
Yinan Liu (Tokyo University of the Arts)
2020, JPN, 6'7''
The event that led to making this film was the director's dream which was just like China's Cultural Revolution. The film conveys the unease, fear and discomfort, and the relationship between dreams and reality.
Yinan Liu
Born in Tianjin, China in 1993. Graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2015. In 2020, received master's degree from the Department of Animation at Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media. She aspires to pioneer new modes of artistic expression through her works, which take an absurdist approach to mundane events in everyday life.
Me and My Magnet and My Dead Friend / Wo he xitieshi he yige siqu de pengyou / 《我和吸铁石和一个死去的朋友》
Maoning Liu (Communication University of China)
2018, PRC, 13'5''
My childhood memories carry two important symbols, a large magnet that I pulled around behind me and a dead friend.
Maoning Liu
Maoning Liu graduated from Communication University of China in 2018. Loves painting, is good at animation, and likes photography. Produced People’s Food, shortlisted for the Slovenian International Stop Animation Festival StopTrik 2017. His animated work Me and My Magnet and My Dead Friend was shortlisted for the 2019 Annecy International Animation Festival Student Unit.
I am a Motif / Wo shi yige moqifu / 《我是一个模契符》
Sijia Luo (Tokyo University of the Arts)
2020, JPN, 8'16''
Realizing how different they are from one another, the three motifs start to doubt themselves. But once the melody begins, the musical motif could not resist the impulse to dance and the others follow. Perhaps I, too, am a motif.
Sijia Luo
Born in Guangdong, China. Graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China in 2015. In 2020, received master's degree from the Department of Animation at Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media. By getting inspiration from other art forms, she develops her films through experiments and seeks liberation from visual language.
SPLASH / SHUIHUA / 《水花》
Jie Shen
2019, PRC, 9'25''
A package is opened. A jump in the water, followed by a splash! It is the exploding of a bomb, marking the transition of life to death.
Jie Shen
Shen Jie (1989, Shanghai) graduated from Shanghai Institute of Technology in 2012. His animated short films were screened at film festivals around the world such as Berlinale, Venezia, Sakhalin, Annecy, Zagreb, Slamdance, Tampere, Encounters, etc. Currently lives and works in Shanghai.