Chinese artist and filmmaker Sun Xun never expected “Magic Atlas” to become the first animated feature selected for the Tokyo International Film Festival’s competition. To me, it brings together many art forms. Animation is simply the label we use for its form.
I’m glad people at TIFF understood the effort I put into it,” Sun tells Variety. Every 60 years, a festival leaves the population unable to remember the era that came before. After a magician is arrested, he meets an orphan boy in prison and gives him the Magic Atlas.
The book points the boy toward a past the empire has tried to erase. The film moves between woodblock prints, ink painting and vivid color. Its images often do the work that a conventional plot might spell out, drawing on art and visual traditions from different periods and cultures.
Sun says the film was shaped by global events, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as personal changes such as his conversion to Buddhism. He put all his savings into the project. When galleries shut down during the pandemic, his art sales dried up.
He says he had to find buyers himself and take out loans to keep the film going. For me, ‘Magic Atlas’ was that all-in moment,” he says. Sadly, my father passed away a year before the film was completed.” Rather than comment on any one event, Sun says, he drew on different cultural and political influences to reflect the divisions he sees around the world.
He also brought in images of ancient civilizations, including the pyramids, alongside mythological elements. It can express how we understand the world and what we are curious about,” he says. Asked whether films need to explain their stories clearly, Sun says: “I’m actually against ‘story.’ I don’t mean that films shouldn’t have stories.
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