Award: Best Animation Film Award – 6th edition of the Kobani International Film Festival 2025 “Here the Story Begins”

The film received the Best Animation Film Award for transforming a futuristic science-fiction concept into an emotionally intimate cinematic experience about silence, loneliness, and human connection through refined visual storytelling and poetic emotional depth.

Synopsis:

On the frozen planet Gliese 12b, a group of workers is assigned to build a gravitational portal under harsh survival conditions. To conserve energy, each worker is permitted to speak only a limited number of words per day, turning language itself into a precious resource.

Within this cold and isolated world, Thatcher treats every word with extreme caution. He suppresses pain, avoids unnecessary conversations, and minimizes his emotions as if silence itself were the only way to survive. But when he is forced to face a deadly snowstorm alone while retrieving a lost crystal, his emotional isolation slowly begins to surface.

Rather than using science fiction merely as spectacle, the film transforms its futuristic setting into a reflection on emotional distance and the fragility of communication. Every saved word carries loneliness, longing, and the fear of losing the ability to truly connect.

In its final emotional moment, after surviving the storm, Thatcher calls his wife back on Earth and quietly says:
“I saved 113 words for you today.”

Through this simple line, the film becomes a deeply moving meditation on love, silence, and the human need for words, balancing technological imagination with emotional vulnerability.

About the Director:

Bo Qing Tang is an animation director and screenwriter with more than twenty years of experience in the animation industry. He has led creative teams in both Chengdu and Los Angeles, developing animated films and television projects that received numerous international recognitions and awards.

His cinematic work is known for combining imaginative visual worlds with intimate emotional storytelling, often exploring fragile human relationships and psychological isolation within symbolic futuristic settings.