Xu Zao Readies 'Easy, My Friend' After 'Light Pillar' — SkimNews
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- Xu Zao's animated feature "Light Pillar" is competing in the Hidden Dragons section at Pingyao's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival while still seeking distribution in China following its Berlinale Perspectives premiere.
- "Light Pillar" flips real and virtual worlds by casting live-action actors Da Peng and Qing Yi as the game world while rendering the real world entirely in 2D animation; the live-action shoot took only five days.
- Da Peng, who plays and voices the lead Zha, also co-produced the film after meeting Xu at the 2023 CFDG Young Shoots Project, where Da Peng served on the jury.
- "Easy, My Friend," Xu's follow-up selected for the HAF Film Lab, follows a skilled illustrator in northern China who takes up rooftop gardening after AI steals her drawing job; Xu aims to finish the script by next July.
- Xu said he is "too lazy" to learn AI tools and prefers drawing by hand, while dismissing AI as the cause of the film industry's decline — calling it "one node on a long timeline" rather than a structural threat.
Why it matters: Xu says he's "too lazy" to learn AI tools, yet his next script centers on an illustrator displaced by AI — turning the disruption he's personally resisting into his next project's premise. Meanwhile, 'Light Pillar' remains undistributed in China despite its Berlinale Perspectives premiere, signaling how international festival visibility doesn't guarantee domestic release.
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