When a drowning man attracts the attention of Kilian, a trusting Swiss businessman, and Bin, an experienced Chinese guide, their debate over rescuing him takes an ironic turn, threatening their lives and trust.

A Dangerous Virtue is my graduation film from Lucerne School of Design, Art and Film, Master in Animation. The film is based on the novel Bin oder die Reise nach Peking by renowned Swiss author Max Frisch, it’s a co-production between PicFilm SA and my school, and it was supported by the Canton of Ticino and RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera.

This was my most formative experience as an independent filmmaker. It was my first time working with a production company, the longest period I had ever worked on a film full time, and it’s my most ambitious animated project yet. I’m also glad to have been able to use my school’s infrastructure and to receive a lot of mentoring from the teachers, especially my mentor Anja Kofmel, who guided me all the through the whole process from the very beginning. Even if I was able to delegate some of my work to other artists who did an extraordinary job on the animation, the sound design and the music among other areas, there were other parts of the process that I had to work on by myself. Some of those, like the color script, the background and compositing were not something I was very confident in, but throughout my studies I was able to improve my skills in order to create a film with a consistent visual quality all throughout.

As with any film, there were innumerable small and big challenges along the way that it would be impossible to list them all. But overcoming all the obstacles and finishing the film on time and on budget is that much more rewarding because of how hard it was sometimes. This triumphant feeling at the end is one of the main things that I love the most about filmmaking