Xu Zao Readies AI-Themed Follow-Up to Berlinale's 'Light Pillar'

Xu Zao, the first-time director behind the Berlinale Perspectives animated feature "Light Pillar," is preparing an AI-themed follow-up titled "Easy, My Friend," selected for the HAF Film Lab.

"Light Pillar" is competing in the Hidden Dragons section for Chinese-language films at the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival. The film still has no distribution deal in China.

The story follows Zha, an employee at a dilapidated film studio in northern China who falls for a female player he meets in a virtual game. She invites him on a trip to the moon. When Zha pays for the ticket with money earned from extra work, the ticket turns out to be invalid.

"Originally, I wanted to tell a story of a person entering the game world. As I was thinking of telling the story in-depth, I thought, why not combining with the film studio that I'm familiar with?" Xu tells Variety. "The film studio's environment is very game-like, as film itself is a kind of game."

Xu says the film also drew on a real-life source: telecom scams run by teenagers, which have become a widespread crime.

A self-described cinephile, Xu nods to several films within his own: Stephen Chow's action comedy "Kung Fu Hustle," Jiang Wen's "Let the Bullets Fly" and the Chinese classic "Journey to the West." He also worked some bad films into "Light Pillar," since a studio lot would never host only great movies.

The fading studio carries a note of melancholy about the state of the film industry as AI advances. Xu rejects that reading.

"It is just the change of method in storytelling or change of tool, but filmmaking itself remains the same in its core – ultimately we only evaluate the film itself," Xu says. "My relative's kids talk to AI all day, so will they refuse an AI movie? I don't think so. What matters is that [the movie] will be something that everyone likes."

He adds that he doesn't "really see today's technologies or environmental factors as driving the decay" of the industry. "If you look at it from a broader time scale, it's just one node on a long timeline, a point on a curve. It doesn't represent everything."

On using AI in his own production, Xu is blunt.

"I'm too lazy to learn how to train it," he says. "If one day it follows my one-sentence order precisely, I will use it. But now I have to learn how to use it well, waiting for it to generate something that eventually I may find unsatisfying. This process drains me. I'd rather draw myself, and I really enjoy drawing."

"Light Pillar" flips the usual logic of real and virtual. The game world is played by live-action actors, led by Da Peng and Qing Yi, while the real world is entirely 2D animation. The live-action shoot for the virtual world took only five days, which sped up production considerably.

"[I did that] just to save troubles. If I shot human actors, I could save my time thinking about how to design and draw the two different worlds," Xu says.

Da Peng, who plays and voices Zha, also co-produced the film. The two met at the CFDG Young Shoots Project in 2023, where Da Peng sat on the jury and Xu approached him with one goal: to cast him as the lead.

"Da Peng actively helped new directors. I simply sent him the script, and he invited me to talk more about it. He asked all his questions, and then we clapped an eye on each other," Xu says. "He fits Zha – age, aura, his previous roles. It's a perfect match."

"Easy, My Friend," still at the script stage, centers on a skilled illustrator who rebuilds her life through rooftop gardening after AI steals her drawing skills and takes her job. The story is set in northern China, and Xu aims to finish the script by next July.

"I have to figure out everything – all the details – during the script stage. If doubt still remains, I definitely won't proceed," Xu says. "The reason I make animation is that I could fully take control of every step of the production. Actually, I have a hard time dealing with last-minute adjustments."

The northern setting is deliberate. "It'd be too comfortable to grow plants in the south," Xu says. "I mustn't let [the protagonist] be that comfortable."

While "Light Pillar" still searches for a Chinese distributor, Xu's skepticism about AI as a creative partner — paired with a story built around its consequences — positions him as a distinctive voice in an industry confronting the technology on two fronts.