Jilin short film receives Xiamen animation award

an animated short film produced by Jilin Animation Institute, won the Cyber Sousa award for outstanding creative animated short film at the 11th Xiamen International Animation Festival on Nov 16.

The festival was held in Xiamen, in East China’s Fujian province, on Nov 15-18.

Co-directed by Steven Brown of the California Institute of the Arts and Liu Jiayi in the Jilin Animation Institute’s international animation master workshop, the film was produced by JAI students. It tells a story on the topic of environmental protection, about how a boy living in a desert puts his life on the line to save a fish he found by accident in a well.

The five-minute film illustrates the status quo of human life in modern society and predicts humanity’s future predicaments in the post-industrial era. It aims to wake people up to these issues, and make them to reflect on their influence on the environment.

Brown came up with the idea and guided the students of JAI through a distance-teaching system, before joining them in May. He came to Changchun and worked with Liu and the students from May 28 to July 28, materializing his thoughts as well as some creative ideas from the group into a visual language and animated effects.

The film also won honorable mention from Beijing Film Academy’s Animation School Awards.