The Blue Butterfly, a six-minute short film directed and animated by Mei Li (M.F.A. Digital Arts ’17), was named the winner of the Best Animation category at the 2017 Asians on Film Festival held earlier this year. The Los Angeles-based short film festival is organized by Asians on Film, a nonprofit organization that promotes Asian and Asian-American cinema. This year’s winners were selected from hundreds of international submissions in 18 categories.
Created in a Digital Animation Studio course at Pratt, the watercolor-style animated film tells the story of an old man who travels around the world capturing butterflies in order to relive the moments spent with his wife.
The Blue Butterfly was also named a finalist at the International Animated Short Film Festival AJAYU in Peru, and in the IndustryBOOST Competition. The film was a semi-finalist in the Meraki International Film Fest and was an official selection at several other festivals around the world.