If you see one animated Chinese film this year, we suggest it’s Art College 1994. Liu Jian’s feature, featuring the voices of Jia Zhangke and Bi Gan, will make its theatrical debut next week at Metrograph, which will also screen his earlier feature Have a Nice Day. Ahead of this, we’re happy to debut a trailer from Dekanalog.
Here’s the synopsis: “Based on its director’s own experiences on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the mid-1990s, Art College 1994, which returns to the meticulous hand-drawn 2D animation style of predecessor Have a Nice Day, is Liu’s affectionate, bittersweet group portrait of a pack of would-be geniuses preparing to revolutionize the arts when not locked into impassioned conversations about grunge and Van Gogh, its ensemble cast of characters voiced by a line-up of talent that includes directors Bi Gan and Jia Zhangke, as well as Metrograph retrospective subject Wang Hongwei. A shaggy, Slacker-ish tale from the pre-millennium Middle Kingdom.”
Find preview and poster below:
Art College 1994 opens in theaters at Metrograph and on VOD on Metrograph-at-Home on April 26.