Short film

Step Into the River

2020 · 14 min

A quiet, hauntingly sad animated short that lingers on loss and memory with gentle, deliberate imagery.

Overview: Lu and Wei live in a village in rural China. The young girls often go to the nearby river to play or fish with their fathers. The river has a special meaning for them because China’s one-child policy has led to some parents drowning their newborn daughters there.
How it feels: Melancholic, bleak, earnest and dark. Slow-burning and demanding.
About: Grief, family, gender, death
Content: Mild violence. No gore, sexual content or swearing.
Note: Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Full breakdown

Tone: melancholicstrength 3 of 3
bleakstrength 2 of 3
earneststrength 2 of 3
darkstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: grief
family
gender
death
isolation
Places: countryside
small town
Era: contemporary
Audience: adult
Form: animated
Content intensity: Gore none
Language none
Violence mild
Sex none

All scales, 0 to 10

No streaming, rental or purchase options are known in the US.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Genres: animation, drama
Directed by: Weijia Ma
Written by: Weijia Ma
Starring: Yifei Chen, Ganfeng Zhu, Ningfu Wei, Zhuocheng Zhao, Zhenhui Chen, Nina Picard, Steen Gao
Music: Pablo Pico
Runtime: 14 min
Country: China, France
Languages: Mandarin