The Berlin Film Festival's curators have quietly widened the scope of their Perspectives section by welcoming Xu Zao's debut feature, an animated vision titled "Han ye deng zhu" - rendered in English as "Light Pillar." The film imagines a world where the notion of traveling beyond Earth has slipped from fantasy into everyday reality, a premise that feels both timely and oddly nostalgic for a medium traditionally rooted in the past. Inside the festival's corridors, the buzz centers on how the Chinese production blends sleek, futuristic design with a lyrical storytelling approach that feels at home alongside European art-house fare. Industry insiders note that the selection signals a growing appetite for non-Western animated voices that can articulate grand speculative ideas without sacrificing visual poetry. For Xu Zao, the invitation marks a rare platform to showcase a first-time feature to an audience that values bold imagination, and for Berlin, it reinforces the festival's reputation as a launchpad for boundary-pushing cinema from across the globe.