Filmmaker Q+A: Xingpei Shen

film still from Lotus Lantern (above).

Xingpei Shen received the Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film at the

56th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

How did you come to know that film would be an important medium for

you?

I did not start working with film/animation until I went to college at Rhode Island

School of Design (RISD).

When I was a child, I used to draw a lot, so I knew that I wanted to be

an artist. Because I never had

any formal art education before RISD, I was interested in a lot of different things.

I gravitated towards animation eventually. It was the perfect medium for me to

explore because of its involvement with many other disciplines, such as drawing,

sound, performance, dance, and storytelling, etc.

Once you knew that, what did you do? Did you seek formal training,

practical experience, or some combination of the two?

I was in art school when I started animation, and this film was made as my

thesis film during my senior year.

Why film (animation)?

It satisfies my love for drawing. I particularly enjoy the painfully long process of

working on a hand-drawn animated film, because I get to develop an innate

relationship with the work, which informs the way I think and see.

Early influences?

Suzan Pitt - Asparagus

George Barbier

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Georgia O'Keeffe

Zhou Xuan

Trips to my Grandma’s

Current sources of inspiration?

I take a lot of inspiration from my walks around my neighborhood. Other than that, I

grew a special interest in Yang Liping’s choreography.

What are you working on?

I am currently working on a new short film titled Wishing Fountain.

What’s on your mind (and in your heart) these days?

I think a lot about spatial dynamics and the history of the city where I currently live

(Los Angeles) and the people who live here: families, immigrants, gentrifiers, capitalists,

socialists, people who create culture and people who consume culture, etc.

Xingpei Shen