Dead rats, live brass: Zhang Xu Zhan at KDIAF

The rats are dead. The band is still playing. In Si So Mi (2017–2018), Zhang Xu Zhan turns old newspaper into small, bedraggled performers with party hats and brass instruments. The funeral procession becomes a celebration of lives spent dodging humans, glue traps and water. A miserable rat life gets a magnificent send-off.

Zhang grew up in a family making paper figures for Taiwanese rituals and funerals. That craft gives his stop-motion puppets their bodies. The wrinkled paper, whiskers, gold headpieces and red threads remain wonderfully visible in the film still: there is pleasure in seeing how this tiny band has been put together.

The programme also includes his 2022 film《熱帶複眼》. A mousedeer’s river crossing becomes a shifting encounter with mirrors, shadows, crocodiles and a fly’s multiple viewpoints. Taiwanese folk-performance movement meets a Southeast Asian folktale. Look at the second still: a small figure hangs above open jaws in a forest threaded with red lanterns.

On October 30, Kuandu International Animation Festival brings Zhang’s films and an artist talk to K301. The selection also lists his Animation Daily series and Ritual of Cathode Ray Tube.