The Star-Catcher
Director: Steven Wang
United States, 2024, 5 min
Shooting Format:Digital
Festival Year:2024
Category:Animation
Genres:Drama, Surrealist
Crew:Director and Animator: Steven Wang; Composer and Orchestrator: Lina Breining
Email:stevenwangfilm@gmail.com
Synopsis
Steven Wang's "The Star-Catcher" paints an immersive picture of a freezing tundra that's hostile to life itself. The story follows Ori, a young boy who witnesses this fact firsthand. Despite his resolve to make things better, he is not immune to the effects of the tundra and must summon the courage to act before it's too late.
Symbolizing feelings of detachment and fear through the setting, "The Star-Catcher" communicates its themes of empathy, resolve, and free-will through a surreal goal: catch the sun to save the tundra.
Set to an original, orchestral score that takes viewers into the spirit of Ori, the highs and lows of the music are deeply intertwined with the rises and falls of the story. "The Star-Catcher" gets to become a dark representation of a world without warmth, but it always maintains a certain hope; a hope we all must have in order to keep our own worlds from freezing over.
Trailer
About the director
Steven Wang is a Taiwanese-American filmmaker from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He was admitted to New York University's Kanbar Institute of Film & Television in 2023. Attracted by themes of personal, mental triumph, Steven loves to craft stories that take you into the minds and imaginations of his protagonists. He celebrates our small moments of clarity and optimism by blowing them up into huge, epic, glorious experiences. He's interested in both the live action and animation mediums and hopes to create visually unique films by combining their strengths.
Filmmaker's note
It can often feel like we're always trending towards silent acceptance of our given circumstances. We may let an icy aloofness creep over us, trapping our words in our mouths and our feelings in our throat; everyone closes themselves off from each other. These moments where everyone is frozen may be without conflict, but those unspoken feelings still exist, wrapped around us—suffocating us slowly. Then, the cold seeps deeper and deeper into our subconscious until our every interaction is just a painful reminder of what hasn't been said. Why do we let ourselves succumb to the ice?
So much of our lives is a psychological battle with ourselves. It's only human to be beat down by life, to be trapped by the ice. Yet, never should we forget about our agency to change things for the better. The world in which we live is only as cold as we make it.