Joe Hsieh's "Night Bus" makes a stop at the New Yorker screening room

The New Yorker acquired award-winning animated short film Night busand will release it in April as part of the award-winning "Screening Room" series available on the brand's digital platforms. This visually captivating film is set on a night bus, where a stolen necklace sets off a series of disturbing events between seven travelers.

Directed and written by Joe Hsieh, Night bus premiered at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in November 2020. The film won the Sundance Film Festival Short Film Jury Animation Award, adding to its growing list of accolades, including the coveted Animafest Zagreb Grand Prix and the Public Prize of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. The film is also nominated for Best Short Film at the upcoming Annie Awards.

Hsieh and the team created the characters and background scenes with pencil drawings, and the cut-out animation was used to enrich the body movements and facial expressions of the figures. To add to the suspense, enhanced contrast and light texture were used in creating the scenes.

Night bus is produced by Wan-Lin Lee and executive producer by Joe Chan. It was acquired by New Yorker Studios and will join the New Yorker's award-winning "Screening Room" series, a collection of fictional films that will make you laugh, cry and challenge your vision of the mundane and the extraordinary.

Previous films in the series include live drama Stutterer, which won an Oscar, and Oscar-nominated animated works Yes People, by Gísli Darri Halldórsson, e One life, by Job, Jories & Marieke.

Read more on Night bus in Animation magazineis the story , promising.