AfterLife
Director: Yimeng Wang
Crew:Writer: Yimeng Wang. Producers: Mingway Lee, Xinrui 'Tata' Chen.
Email:yimenganima@gmail.com
Synopsis
Afterlife is a meditative animated short that explores the quiet spaces within a restless mind. Overwhelmed by the fast pace of city life, a young soul steps away, flees into a quiet inner world, and finds herself reconnected to nature’s gentle rhythms. Through fluid, wordless visuals, the film captures an emotional retreat into memory, silence, and self-awareness.
It is meant to be felt more than understood, which invites viewers to slow down, breathe, and remember the grounding power of the natural world. Afterlife is a quiet call back to presence, softness, and being.
Trailer
About the director
Yimeng Wang is an independent animator, director, and writer. She grew up in China, and is currently studying Film and Animation Production at NYU. With the international background, she participated in productions in different countries, and she has contributed to several award-winning films. Yimeng was the animator for Places You Can Go (2023) and the writer of Until He’s Born (2024).
AfterLife (2025) marks her directorial debut, which is her first film as a director.
Filmmaker's note
AfterLife is not about what happens after death, it’s about what happens when we finally pause. It’s a film about creating space to breathe, reflect, and remember who we are beneath the relentless noise of modern life.
The idea began with a real moment, a conversation I had with my friends on a Friday night. I noticed how my friends seemed to live with a clear theme or a hobby, while I felt swept into an endless cycle of routine. In the middle of one rainy day on a crowded New York street, I was suddenly struck by the scent of the air, the sound of falling rain, and the stillness beneath the chaos. It awakened something quiet and familiar in me. I remembered the rhythms of my childhood in the mountains of China, where life moved slower, and we picked strawberries, caught earthworms, and listened to rain, feeling the humidity in the air. Back then, we had no signal, no screens, and no flooding messages. Just weather, sounds, and time.
This film is a spiritual return, not to a physical place, but to that forgotten inner state. It’s an invitation to reconnect with the quietest parts of ourselves, the ones we often leave behind in the rush of daily life.