Moonfish’ Director and Stars Lucy Liu and Morgan Spector Break Down Their Black-and-White Animated Film About Isolated Astronauts And Why It’s an Allegory for ‘The Current Human Condition’ — SkimNews
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- Daniel Zvereff directed "Moonfish," a 2D black-and-white animated film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 6 after receiving a Biennale College Cinema grant.
- Lucy Liu ("Kung Fu Panda," "Strange World") and Morgan Spector ("The Gilded Age") voice two astronauts on an isolating moon mission tied to a corporate quota they must meet to return home.
- Zvereff designed the film so he could finish it entirely solo; over nine months of production he brought on animators Hoss Wheeler and Devin Grover to assist.
- Zvereff frames the moon setting as an allegory for the "current human condition" — a society that is "very plugged in" yet simultaneously "growing a bit disconnected."
- Spector plays a member of an evolved moon underclass "without rights, assets or any real hope for the future" who goes "a little mad" during the mission.
- Liu also voices a talking fish that accompanies the astronauts — a stand-in, Zvereff says, for the canaries miners once carried to know when to leave.
- Spector describes Zvereff's worldbuilding as one where "the corporation has merged with the computer" into "a perfect authoritarian machine that uses human beings as fodder."
Why it matters: For Zvereff, a first-time filmmaker who designed the film to be finishable solo, landing a Venice premiere with voice leads of Liu and Spector's stature — backed by a Biennale College Cinema grant — shows hand-crafted 2D animation can still reach top-tier festivals without studio infrastructure or digital pipelines.
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