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Sun Xun carved Magic Atlas frame by frame for Tokyo’s competition

Chinese artist and filmmaker Sun Xun spent a decade creating Magic Atlas, which brought feature-length animation into the Tokyo International Film Festival competition for the first time. Woodblock printing, ink painting and scanned handmade images shape its fictional empire of suppressed memories. Sun describes carving individual frames and selling artworks to finance the next stage of production.

Arts··Morning
Wide view of an animation printmaking workshop, with carved wooden blocks, gouges, wood shavings, ink rollers and wax on the workbenches.

Handmade frames enter Tokyo’s competition

Chinese artist and filmmaker Sun Xun’s Magic Atlas entered Japan’s Tokyo International Film Festival as its competition’s first feature-length animation. A decade of work brought together woodblock printing, ink painting and vivid colour. At an October 29 audience discussion, Sun explained that he made images by hand before scanning them into a computer for further processing.[1], [2]

For woodblock sequences, he carved into the wood for individual frames. Because the wood’s surface was uneven, he applied hot wax to flatten it before printing. He described thinking through the movement before making each image, with the physical preparation of the blocks adding to the time required.[2]

Art sales finance the next scene

Sun said drawings and other artworks made for one scene were sold to finance production of the next. He invested his savings in the film. Pandemic gallery closures interrupted art sales, and he says he sought buyers himself and borrowed money to keep working. His research included murals at Dunhuang in China, Song dynasty painting and the history of calligraphy; he practised different calligraphic styles for the film.[1], [2]

An orphan receives the empire’s erased memories

Magic Atlas takes place in Luocha, a fictional coal-mining empire where flying is forbidden and collective memory is suppressed. An imprisoned magician gives an orphan a book that leads toward the erased past. Sun describes the film as a meeting of art forms, using historical images and artistic traditions to build its world.[1]

References

  1. News sourceVarietySun Xun brings Magic Atlas into Tokyo’s competition↩1↩2↩3
  2. News sourceTokyo International Film FestivalSun Xun discusses Magic Atlas at Tokyo↩1↩2↩3

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