I must say, that the first time I saw this trailer of this upcoming film, the animation caught my attention and the truth is, I am already impatient and eager for the premiere of this film, because I find the animation beautiful and I’m already hyped for this movie because it reminds me a lot of the Studio Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, since the animation seems to have taken inspiration from some anime or Japanese animation, well, certainly, the character models remind me of any anime I have seen in my childhood and although I still don't know what the story is about, it seems to be combined with romance, but at the same time it has overtones of war and destruction, but despite the theme it has, I do not plan to miss seeing this film as soon as it is released in the cinemas of my country. This film I am talking about is called: “The Glassworker”, a Pakistani animated film with handmade animation, being the first Pakistani film to be created directed by Usman Riaz, this being an original story of his, produced by Khizer Riaz and Manuel Cristóbal, music composed by Usman Riaz and Carmine Diflorio, produced by the Mano Animation Studios company, soon to be released in theaters on July 26, 2024.
Not much is known about the story yet, but from what can be seen in the trailer, the story takes place in a fictional place similar to Pakistan where a young man named Vincent Oliver lives, who lives with his father Tomas Oliver, who has a store dedicated to the glasswork business and since he was very young, his father has taught him how to make fiberglass so he could take on his business in the future, until one day he meets a beautiful red-haired girl with green eyes named Alliz Amano, who aspires to become a great violinist and seems to come from a high social class family and between both of them, they begin to feel interest and attraction on the part of both slowly turning into love, but everything begins to get complicated when both are involved in a war, when the colonel of the army, who is also Alliz’s father forces the father of Vincent to make weapons for the war and this will have serious repercussions on Vincent's relationship with his father and at the same time, his relationship with Alliz will be tested and I can’t wait to see how things are going to work out for them.
Director Usman Riaz himself drew the entire film, which consisted of 1,477 shots and more than 2,500 individual drawings.
"I knew exactly how I wanted it to look and I drew it in great detail, but that was really the easy part," Riaz says. “The hard part was getting people to accept what we were doing and create this studio. No one has ever done anything like this in this country. It was very, very hard. But somehow we did it. Is it exactly how you wanted it to look? Of course not. But it's the beginning. And I'm very happy that, with the limited resources we had, we were able to achieve something like this. And if this works well, then obviously I want to keep improving and building. “That’s the exciting part.”
The truth is that I am excited and at the same time impatient to see this great story, since I have a positive feeling about the film and I think that because of how it looks, it will win some recognition or award, although I am not sure yet which actors dubbing will lend their voices to the characters, but in the first instance, the animation takes all my attention, because I have always liked hand-drawn animation and until now, I consider it quite underrated because lately, I feel that many animated films or series are being created by computer or being 3D animation, but I feel that hand-made animation transmits magic because the drawing strokes are made with pencil and something tells me that this film will be successful and I don’t know why, but somehow, the two main characters remind me of female and male characters I’ve seen on Disney movies since the girl seems to be the type of being optimistic and dreamer and the boy seems to be aloof and quiet and serious, although I feel that it has not been promoted enough in my country and I hope it will be released soon the trailer in English to hear what the characters' voices will be like. I hope that this film is more recognized and ends up being successful and memorable for a long time so that it is not forgotten, although I don't think that will be the case and good vibes await this film and if it is successful, I hope for more movies like this and that the studio releases more movies being hand-drawn.