Chinese painter Sun Xun completes ten year animation project

Chinese painter Sun Xun completed a feature-length animated film titled Magic Atlas after working on the project for ten years.

The film received a Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Sun Xun largely self-financed the production and used a workshop model to create the visuals. Instead of hiring professional animators, he employed hundreds of art students to produce individual frames for the movie. The film follows an explorer navigating mystic realms, including a coal-mining kingdom called Luocha.

In this setting, the government bans maps and memories while enforcing industrial quotas. The story uses allegorical imagery, such as a group of talking animals in power and a swarm of mosquitoes with cameras for heads to monitor the population. Sun Xun designed the film using dream logic and symbolism to explore Eastern spiritual ideas about the oneness of all things. The animation features a variety of distinct visual styles.

Some scenes use black-and-white woodcuts inspired by Rockwell Kent, while others incorporate pastels, crayons, and magic markers. Sun Xun even included a segment animated by his Instagram followers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The film also draws from traditional Chinese art forms, such as Dunhuang murals and Song dynasty painting, as well as Western influences from artists like Salvador Dalí and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.