Drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese landscape painting, the Strasburg Film Festival short Pangu awes with its sand art stop-motion animation. The use of sand art creates a unique lightbox, when light shines through the sand, it displays a black or gray silhouette depending on the sand’s thickness.
According to Chinese myth, Pangu is the creator of the universe, and he created Heaven and Earth when he hatched from formless chaos. With the aide of the four prominent beasts, Pangu held Heaven and Earth apart for nearly eighteen thousand years until his death. upon his passing his body became the foundations for the world. His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; and the fleas on his fur became the world’s animals.
Be sure to catch the wonderfully unique Pangu at the Grey Lotus on Friday, November 9th at 3:25 PM. Tickets can be found on the event page.
Director Biography
Born in Wenzhou China in 1992, Yijun Wang studied animation at Zhejiang University of Media and Communication and earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 2015, and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Art degree. In 2015, Wang’s undergraduate project, Superman Bubble Gum, won Excellent Graduation Works and she received the Asian Pacific Animation & Comics Contest Award for Excellent Creation Works.
Director Statement
The animation industry of China has started to pay more and more attention to the home-grown animation and most of the Chinese animators are trying to boost the domestic animation industry. In fact, the volume of the Chinese animation has increased from year to year while improving the quality of animation. Big Fish Begonia, Monkey King: Hero is Back and Da Hu Fa, are some of the most represented Chinese animations currently. This trend makes it clear that Chinese animators are starting to express their own story with their newfound language of animation. This helped to inspired me to choose Pangu as my thesis topic, as I have been considering making an animation relating to Chinese culture for a long time. Pangu holds a special place in my heart, not only because it is my first first independent stop-motion project that involves Chinese cultural elements, but also it is the story of creation in Chinese myth.
