{"id":482191,"date":"2026-02-15T19:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/482191\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:47:08","slug":"berlin-selection-light-pillar-unveils-new-clip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/482191\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin Selection ‘Light Pillar’ Unveils New Clip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tVariety is exclusively unveiling a new clip from \u201cLight Pillar<\/a>,\u201d the feature debut from Chinese writer-director Xu Zao, which is in the Berlin Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s Perspectives section.<\/p>\n

\n\tDubai-based company Cercamon recently acquired worldwide sales rights<\/a> to the production, which screens in competition for the best first feature award in the strand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLight Pillar\u201d follows a solitary janitor working in a deteriorating film studio who becomes absorbed in a virtual romance before his illusion collapses. When a production crew arrives to film an alien invasion movie on the crumbling backlot, the janitor decides to vanish alongside the studio itself.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe genre-crossing romantic sci-fi drama with touches of comedy uses hand-drawn animation to portray the protagonist\u2019s mundane reality while live-action sequences depict the virtual realm to where he escapes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Light Pillar\u2019 combines romance, science fiction, and comedy,\u201d Xu said in a statement. \u201cAlthough the story takes place in the future, its themes come from our lives today. In life, love and happiness are sometimes things we chase, but often they are already around us \u2013 we just don\u2019t notice them because we\u2019re distracted by everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director explained his unconventional visual strategy: \u201cVisually, the film mixes animation and live action to show two different worlds. Unlike the usual approach, animation here represents our protagonist\u2019s real life, while live-action footage shows the virtual world. For him, reality feels flat, while the virtual world looks vivid, rich, and full of new possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDa Peng stars as the janitor and serves as executive producer on the film, which Lu Xiaowei produces.<\/p>\n

\n\tXu holds a master\u2019s degree from the Beijing Film Academy\u2019s School of Fine Art. His 43-minute animated work \u201cNo Changes Have Taken In Our Life\u201d premiered at Rotterdam in 2023 and collected the Golden Dove for animated film at DOK Leipzig plus the Grand Prize at Japan\u2019s Image Forum Festival. Beyond directing, Xu also wrote the screenplay and created the storyboards for \u201cLight Pillar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the clip here:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Variety is exclusively unveiling a new clip from \u201cLight Pillar,\u201d the feature debut from Chinese writer-director Xu Zao,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,106561,134,244457,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-482191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-light-pillar","13":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}