Taiwanese animation director Hsin Hsuan Yeh (“Sense of Nowhere”) is in pre-production on “The River Within You,” an immersive VR experience exploring the connection between holding on to the memory of someone lost and finding the strength to let them go. Yeh will present the project at the 13th Venice Production Bridge’s Gap-Financing Market, running Sept. 4-6. Told from the perspective of a grandmother who has just died, the story begins as a butterfly guides her soul toward its final resting place: an ocean made of tears.
But when her grieving granddaughter’s tear falls onto her body, the grandmother is pulled into a dissolving world of their shared memories, forcing her to journey backwards through their joyful moments before either can move on. The premise draws on a Taiwanese folk belief that a living person’s tears falling upon the deceased can prevent their soul from finding rest. The tale asks whether, when death frightens us because no new memories can be made, returning to those we already share can become a way of saying goodbye.
In my memories, she had always been this happy, optimistic person who was constantly laughing. But after she passed away, somehow I could only remember her as she was during those final days.” “The River Within You” grew out of Yeh’s own sense of being stuck – and of the unfairness of grief, which can reduce a lifetime to its final days, allowing hardship to overshadow the person who existed before them. By journeying back to happier moments, she wanted to reclaim that person from a past grief had seemingly erased.
Drawn from Yeh’s own memories with her grandmother, the challenges turn personal recollections into interactive encounters. Central to navigating them is hand tracking, transforming touch into both a narrative and emotional device. Photogrammetry-scanned clay models combined with CGI animation preserve tactile textures, bringing handcrafted warmth to the visuals.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
