AI-assisted Short Film | 00:03:48 | 2026

Inked Rain is an experimental short film integrating oriental painting aesthetics with AI-assisted imagery. It tells the story of Chen Sheng, a painter unsatisfied with his creation, who accidentally enters his own ink-wash scroll and encounters the painted lady. He wanders across the poetic West Lake, with seasons shifting guided by classical Chinese poems. This scroll-built world is almost flawless yet lacks real-life imperfections. Chen Sheng comes to understand that truth carries flaws, and art values authentic life traces rather than absolute perfection. The work applies two contrasting visual styles: film-textured footage for reality and ink-wash aesthetics for the scroll world. Rooted in West Lake’s local culture, it reinterprets classic Jiangnan imagery via modern digital techniques.

Jiafan Lin is a second-year postgraduate student majoring in Theatre, Film and Television at Zhejiang University of Media and Communications. Jiafan explores AI-driven image-making as a tool for audiovisual creation, with particular interest in combining traditional cinematic expression, oriental aesthetics, and digital techniques.