1. Liu Jian — 刘健 (Jiangsu, 1969)
One man, one film: he draws it himself, edits it himself and takes an independent feature-length animation to the main competition at Berlin.
- Path — born in Jiangsu; graduated from the Nanjing Academy of Arts in Chinese painting; teaches at the China Academy of Art.
- “Piercing Me” (2010) — the first independent feature-length animation made by a single author.
- “Have a Nice Day” (2017) — the first Chinese animated film in the main competition of the three major festivals, with three Golden Horse nominations; “Art College” (2023) again reached the Berlinale main competition.
2. Bu Sifan — 不思凡 (1970s)
Adult animation: black humour, dystopia and violence that no one expects from a Chinese cartoon.
- “Da Hu Fa” (2017) — the first Chinese animated film released with an age rating.
- “The Storm” (2024) — released under the label “shuimo-style animation”: southern mountains and water, a village on a scroll.
- Theme — social reality and human nature instead of a fairy tale.
3. Li Yang — 李阳 (Beijing, 1980s)
An author in whose work animation, live-action cinema and music video share a single editing rhythm.
- “The Adventures of Li Xianji” — a short animation (2009) that became a cult hit online.
- Later — “Bad Future”, “The Event of Young Superpowers?!”, and the live-action “Evacuation from the 21st Century” (2024).
- Style — jump cuts and emotion instead of logic: the press calls him an “exception” in the profession.
4. Tang Bohua — 汤柏华 (1980s)
Animation as mural painting: he paints a cartoon on a thousand plaster slabs in the technique of wall painting.
- Path — a graduate of the printmaking faculty of the China Academy of Art.
- “The Country of Summer Cicadas” — a 17-minute film painted on more than ten thousand plaster slabs with a total weight of over twenty tonnes.
- Dunhuang — for “The Radiance of Mogao” he worked with the support of the Dunhuang Academy; seven hundred slabs were exhibited as works of art.
5. Pi San — 皮三 (Beijing)
The father of Chinese online animation: the “Kuakuakua” series and a studio that grew out of the Flash era.
- Studio — in 2005 he founded Hutoon Animation (互象动画) in Beijing.
- “Kuakuakua” — a series of short cartoons that became an online classic; “Miss Puff” is an urban series about feelings.
- Role — the press calls him one of the key figures of independent auteur animation in China; he is also known for publicly criticising state support for animation.
6. Lei Lei — 雷磊 (Nanchang, Jiangxi, 1985)
Hand-made animation and the archive: he seeks a way to preserve the trace of the hand inside digital post-production.
- Path — born in 1985 in Nanchang (Jiangxi); graduated from Tsinghua University in 2009; works with animation, video, painting and music.
- Works — “This Is Love” (2010, Ottawa Festival prize for best short animation), “Recycled” (2013, selected for Annecy).
- Method — a combination of hand-made animation with archival material and text.
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7. Yu Shui — 於水 (1970s)
The author of the first episode of “Yao — Chinese Folktales”: a small beast, a big boss and the whole arithmetic of power.
- “A Little Monster's Summer” — the first episode of the anthology “Yao — Chinese Folktales” (2023).
- The anthology — “Yao — Chinese Folktales” was made by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio and bilibili; it premiered on 1 January 2023, eight episodes, chief director Chen Liaoyu.
- Reception — the story of a little pig-demon under “Journey to the West”: an awakening of consciousness instead of a heroic deed.
8. Chen Lianhua & An Xu — 陈莲华 安旭 (Beijing, 2000s)
A duo that brought paper cut-outs and shadow theatre back into animation — and made the absurd with them.
- Chen Lianhua — an independent animation director, one of the founders of the Fei Nao Ji animation festival, a lecturer at the animation faculty of the Beijing Film Academy; works include “The Gentle Killer”, “Peach Blossom Spring” and “The Emerald Jar”.
- Together with An Xu — “Fish in Vinegar, Western Lian Style”, a cycle about the twenty-four seasons, and “Hanlu” (2018).
- Reception — “Hanlu” was shot in a single take with a rotating camera in the technique of cut-outs and shadows: a bird's-eye view, repetition and loop.
9. Shen Jie — 沈杰 (Shanghai, 1989)
Experiment without explanation: short films built on gesture and sound rather than on story.
- Path — born on 26 October 1989; graduated in multimedia from the Shanghai Institute of Applied Technology in 2012; lives in Shanghai.
- Works — “Run!” (2012), “Stutter” (2013), “Horse” (2013), “Me” (2015), “Monkey” (2015) — selected for the 72nd Venice Film Festival.
- Later — “Mother Mei”, “Part of a Tiger”, “Screen”; the director speaks of a bodily, almost animal reaction to the frame.
10. Hu Rui — 胡睿 (Shandong)
Zhiguai as form: an adaptation of an old novella in which the viewer and the narrator swap places.
- “Goose, Goose, Goose” — the second episode of the anthology “Yao — Chinese Folktales” (2023); the plot reworks the novella “The Yangxian Scholar” from “Further Records of the Dark and the Light”.
- Path — studied cinema in Germany in the 2000s; teaches at Shandong Normal University.
- Reception — a strong personal style and a romantic treatment of a traditional zhiguai plot.
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