Directing

Lei Lei

Born

1985-01-01 (41)

Place of birth

Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China

Known for

Directing

Credits

42 titles

Lei Lei (1985, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province) is a Chinese animator, filmmaker and artist. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 2009, with a master's degree in Animation. Since then, he has worked as an independent filmmaker and experimental animation artist. His animated short This Is Love (2010) was awarded Best Narrative Short at Ottawa International Animation Festival. From then on, many of his short films have received awards at festivals worldwide and he has been selected for many artist residencies. Since 2017, Lei has spent most of his time in Los Angeles, where he is a full-time faculty member at the department of Experimental Animation, CalArts. Ningdu is selected for the IFFR Tig…

Known for

Wipe Out The Bandits of Wulong Mountain poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Wipe Out The Bandits of Wulong Mountain

2012

Monkey King Fight Lion Camel poster
5.0

As Tang Sanzang and his disciples arrive at Lion Camel Ridge, they encounter villagers captured by demons. Wukong's attempt to rescue them goes awry, and he and Zhu Bajie fall into a trap set by the three demon kings. Overwhelmed by their enemies, Wukong seeks help from the Buddha and learns the value of unity and teamwork. With the help of his brothers and a Bodhisattva, they work together to save the villagers and continue their journey westward, stronger and more united than before.

Monkey King Fight Lion Camel

2024

Uncle Nine:  The Curious Case of the Ancient Coffin poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Uncle Nine: The Curious Case of the Ancient Coffin

2021

Lupita From Now On poster
NR

What happened to Lupita after the frustrated attempt to get into the dance battle? And what's up with Huo now, the dancer that Lupita idolized? What remains of that life-changing afternoon in Lupita's best friend memory?

Lupita From Now On

2022

This Is Not a Time to Lie poster
NR

The young Chinese animator also known as “Ray” Lei crafts a hallucinatory short that follows a doe-eyed protagonist on a quest through an imagined world.

This Is Not a Time to Lie

2014

A Bright Summer Diary poster
4.0

A boy and his mother sit in a cardboard car in front of painted landscape. This postcard from his childhood is what triggers Chinese artist Lei Lei to go on a journey down the rabbit hole of memory. Put together with his signature style of melancholic collage, time jitters in and out of its usual flow as screenshots, found photos and propaganda images appear in succession as if pulled through an archaic machine to explore how truth is coloured by nostalgia.

A Bright Summer Diary

2020

Film credits

Series credits

Behind the camera

This Is Not a Time to Lie poster
NR

The young Chinese animator also known as “Ray” Lei crafts a hallucinatory short that follows a doe-eyed protagonist on a quest through an imagined world.

This Is Not a Time to Lie

2014

A Bright Summer Diary poster
4.0

A boy and his mother sit in a cardboard car in front of painted landscape. This postcard from his childhood is what triggers Chinese artist Lei Lei to go on a journey down the rabbit hole of memory. Put together with his signature style of melancholic collage, time jitters in and out of its usual flow as screenshots, found photos and propaganda images appear in succession as if pulled through an archaic machine to explore how truth is coloured by nostalgia.

A Bright Summer Diary

2020

A Bright Summer Diary poster
4.0

A boy and his mother sit in a cardboard car in front of painted landscape. This postcard from his childhood is what triggers Chinese artist Lei Lei to go on a journey down the rabbit hole of memory. Put together with his signature style of melancholic collage, time jitters in and out of its usual flow as screenshots, found photos and propaganda images appear in succession as if pulled through an archaic machine to explore how truth is coloured by nostalgia.

A Bright Summer Diary

2020

Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish poster
4.5

“Our family is special”, says filmmaker Lei Lei’s father Lei Jiaqi. On the audio track of this inventive, poignant essay film he starts to talk about the struggles of his family, amid China’s troubled times of the 1960s. When his own father, Lei Ting, is sent to the countryside, he stays behind with his sister and his ill mother. When Mum passes away, and the system forbids Ting to come back to live with his children, the kids are kept in an orphanage.

Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish

2022

Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish poster
4.5

“Our family is special”, says filmmaker Lei Lei’s father Lei Jiaqi. On the audio track of this inventive, poignant essay film he starts to talk about the struggles of his family, amid China’s troubled times of the 1960s. When his own father, Lei Ting, is sent to the countryside, he stays behind with his sister and his ill mother. When Mum passes away, and the system forbids Ting to come back to live with his children, the kids are kept in an orphanage.

Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish

2022

No artwork available
NR

Animated film by Lei Lei.

Rocket

—

Weekend poster
NR

With Weekend, the artist and Beijing / LA resident Lei Lei not only displays artistic nostalgia, but also the constant quest for certainty regarding history, family and personal identity. His work can be seen as a type of “creative thinking” on the theme, an artistic strategy related to future imagination, and a contradictory position on emotions that cannot be returned to today. As philosopher and art critic Boris Groys pointed out: “Life can be recorded, but it can't be shown.” It is also because of the complexity of this contradiction, and the images that comprise the artist’s works that different images taken at the point of visual transformation and dialectical form between the calm and the energetic are shown, so that “nostalgia” becomes a truly contemporary medium in the practice of image art. Dong Bingfeng

Weekend

2018

Missing One Player poster
NR

During a mahjong game, a bad situation occurs. Everyone waits for the last player to show up. The three have no choice but to wait and sit there silently in tears. However, they do believe that the fourth player will come. They look up to the sky waiting for this miracle to happen.

Missing One Player

2015

I Don't Like The Comics You Drew poster
NR

Dave draws the first page of his comic book and excitedly shows it to his friend Lei Lei. Lei Lei is not impressed.

I Don't Like The Comics You Drew

2018

I Don't Like The Comics You Drew poster
NR

Dave draws the first page of his comic book and excitedly shows it to his friend Lei Lei. Lei Lei is not impressed.

I Don't Like The Comics You Drew

2018

Breathless Animals poster
NR

"What did you dream about and what was your daily life as a teenager?” An older woman recalls her youthful memories in China during the 1970’s while unfolding in front of our eyes the recreation of the modern times from the past. Until one day, the first breathless animal appears, a White horse…

Breathless Animals

2019

Breathless Animals poster
NR

"What did you dream about and what was your daily life as a teenager?” An older woman recalls her youthful memories in China during the 1970’s while unfolding in front of our eyes the recreation of the modern times from the past. Until one day, the first breathless animal appears, a White horse…

Breathless Animals

2019

Breathless Animals poster
NR

"What did you dream about and what was your daily life as a teenager?” An older woman recalls her youthful memories in China during the 1970’s while unfolding in front of our eyes the recreation of the modern times from the past. Until one day, the first breathless animal appears, a White horse…

Breathless Animals

2019

re-engraved poster
NR

The fragile materialities of Yangzhou wood engraving and analog film converge in Lei Lei’s fractal portrait of labor and craft. Exploring techniques of light and poetry, wood and celluloid, re-engraved montages demonstrations of expertise with a cacophonous electronic soundtrack and the personal histories of the women whose labor sustains these traditions.

re-engraved

2024

Animafest Zagreb poster
NR

With animation from Lei Lei and beatboxing from Eloi Dequeker, this is the story of "guy with a hat" as he heads to the cinema in the supercar.

Animafest Zagreb

2014

Hand Colored no.2 poster
NR

In 2013, Lei Lei and Thomas Sauvin collected numbers of black-and-white photos from Chinese flea markets and imagined that all of them belonged to one fictional Chinese person. Through rendering, collage, and a cyclical process of hand coloring, scanning, and printing, connections among the photos were created.

Hand Colored no.2

2017

Hand Colored no.2 poster
NR

In 2013, Lei Lei and Thomas Sauvin collected numbers of black-and-white photos from Chinese flea markets and imagined that all of them belonged to one fictional Chinese person. Through rendering, collage, and a cyclical process of hand coloring, scanning, and printing, connections among the photos were created.

Hand Colored no.2

2017

Books on Books poster
NR

The cutout patterns are from my father's book, Book Cover Collection in the West, which was published in 1988, when Chinese leaders launched their great "Reform" and "Opening Up" to embrace the world. Many leading concepts of book cover design were introduced in this book, which has had an eye-opening influence on the younger generation of Chinese designers since.

Books on Books

2016

A Gift for You poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A Gift for You

2023

Big Hands Oh Big Hands, Let It Be Bigger and Bigger poster
NR

This story takes place in a city, in which all of the citizens have very big hands. One child, however, is special. He has tiny hands, and his head full of peculiar thoughts. The boy constantly talks to people about these thoughts, but they dislike his long-windedness and eventually ignore him. He is very lonely. The only he does is talking to the walls.

Big Hands Oh Big Hands, Let It Be Bigger and Bigger

2013

Break no.1 & Break no.2. poster
NR

After A Bright Summer Diary (IFFR 2020) and Ningdu (IFFR 2022) we once again welcome Lei Lei to Rotterdam with this compelling tribute to bygone images and memories. As always, the mundane comes alive through a conscientious montage of gorgeous compositions. A two-part quest for what has been lost through time, Break no.1 & Break no.2 fires the imagination.

Break no.1 & Break no.2.

2024

No artwork available
NR

The extraordinary ideas of an East Chinese botanist who sought to connect with the Earth's memories through the roots of a "living fossil" tree species are brought to life through creative filmmaking techniques, editing, and soundtrack.

Vertigo Garden

2026

No artwork available
NR

The extraordinary ideas of an East Chinese botanist who sought to connect with the Earth's memories through the roots of a "living fossil" tree species are brought to life through creative filmmaking techniques, editing, and soundtrack.

Vertigo Garden

2026

No artwork available
NR

The extraordinary ideas of an East Chinese botanist who sought to connect with the Earth's memories through the roots of a "living fossil" tree species are brought to life through creative filmmaking techniques, editing, and soundtrack.

Vertigo Garden

2026

That Day, on the River poster
NR

Searching for the house his father grew up in, director Lei Lei charts the story of a childhood in rural China using a mix of found footage, collage, and animation techniques: a moving account of all the things the father thinks he was not good at.

That Day, on the River

2023

Ready to play poster
NR

Short animation about a running girl by Lei Lei

Ready to play

2021

Hu Lulu Hong Longlong Hua Lala poster
NR

One day, a heavy rain floods a small, peaceful village. A brave child swims to the universe to save the day.

Hu Lulu Hong Longlong Hua Lala

2010

My...MY... poster
NR

A guy suddenly finds himself naked. Where are his clothes!?

My...MY...

2011

Magic Cube and Ping-Pong poster
NR

Love – and ping pong - can be liberating in a world of sameness.

Magic Cube and Ping-Pong

2009

No artwork available
NR

The story is a narration of a pseudoscience on cotton plantation. The protagonist waters the cotton with music and love, resulting in the greatest harvest that sky is the only way for the cotton to go. Landing from sky, the cotton turns from cloud into candies in kiddy’s hand.

The Universe Cotton

2009

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Happy Year of the Rat 2020

2020

This Is Love poster
NR

After a long flight, a young man is greeted lovingly by his girlfriend. As they embrace, the man spots a hole in the woman’s sock. Can their love survive this?

This Is Love

2010

Recycled poster
6.0

An exhaustively created moving image mural of Beijing and her inhabitants, painstakingly extracted from an archive of half a million 35mm negatives.

Recycled

2013

Recycled poster
6.0

An exhaustively created moving image mural of Beijing and her inhabitants, painstakingly extracted from an archive of half a million 35mm negatives.

Recycled

2013

HAFF Leader 2016 poster
NR

During production, I have utilized images from a second-hand book. This book was used to train Chinese youths on how to make quick sketches of human figures in the 80s. I have cut out model photos from the book and placed them in potted landscape, attempting to discover the occasional poetic and dramatic moment from the act of piecing together the work. Moreover, the sound in the leaders is a recording of myself, aged 3. It was the year 1988, when I was practicing the violin. I have combined both pictures and sounds from China in the 80s, and hope making the film seem both humorous and romantic.

HAFF Leader 2016

2016

No artwork available
NR

A happy planet of pear people is invaded by some mean reverse pear head aliens. A film about peace, tolerance and forgiveness. Drawn with pens on exercise books.

Pear or Alien

2008