A photo of Beyond the Skies Photo: Sina Weibo

Beyond the Skies, a war film produced by the Chinese Academy of Art, debuted at the Shanghai International Film Festival on Sunday. By focusing on the "aesthetics of war films," the new low-budget production breaks new ground by interpreting a historical patriotic story within an experimental framework.  

The new film tells the story about a soldier in the Chinese Red Army who sets foot on a war journey that puts him face to face with a life and death choice. The film strives to differentiate itself from mainstream blockbuster war films such as The Sacrifice by approaching war film's traditional production and narrative forms from an opposing direction. 

"If independent films touch on the subject of war, I assume production-wise they cost less than other big-budget films. This means the art film may not be large-scale or have impressive settings, but this is not a weakness, because this type of film never really tries to impress audiences with extreme emotions or grandeur… Under the umbrella of an 'art film,' its narration can be rather lucid and creative, such as weaving surreal and real stories together," Lu Yong, an independent documentary producer in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

With a budget of just 3 million yuan ($470,000), Beyond the Skies is indeed literally a small budget film. Director Liu Zhihai told media that the film may be one of the lowest-budget war movies in the history of film. 

Given the small budget, the film brought in amateur actors to tell its story and focused particularly on poeticizing the topic of "war" and incorporating fine art aesthetics into its visual designs. The overall visual presentation is that of an old film with heavy use of faded washed out colors and cool tones to deliver a solemn feeling of austerity. 

"An art film can be euphemistic because most of its emotions and symbolism are hidden in its visual presentation. Some times the same footage can appear in films more than once, but subtly changing the focal distance, colors and such, a big change to the story can be suggested," Sophie Yang, an expert in East Asian independent film in London, told the Global Times. 

While the film hasn't yet been released in theaters, it has still inspired netizen discussion, capturing the interest of a particular group of audiences who want a change for "too exciting or emotional" films. 

"If it promotes its unconventional way of storytelling, then I want to watch it, to see how the story is being told with creativity… I've seen many films that try to add much emotion in a pretty simple story; the actors, music, lines, everything there just force you to feel moved," Pearie, a Chinese anti-commercial film fan, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Beyond the Skies is dedicated to the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). A release date has not yet been announced.