Hand Drawn Animated Film

Turning the darkness of reality into something full of light and wonder

Dear Readers..,

My name is Zolbayar Dorjsembee. You can call me VINCI. I’m the CEO of Flame Bros Animation Studio and the writer and director of “SNOWIE”.

“Snowie” is a song every Mongolian child has grown up with for 40 years.

In winter 2020, singing it as a lullaby to my baby, the inspiration of Snowie animation was born.

I told myself, it had to exist somehow, even as a simple comic sketch.

Five years later, I’m happy to introduce Snowie as a 90-minute feature animation film.

I’m sure every one of us has been asked this question at least once as child. Like many of us, Ayalguu hears it in a gentle whisper from her older sister, Egshiglen, on a bus to the city to sell books and make a living.

Ayalguu answers: a “Snowie,” which becomes the name of my film. In her world, a “Snowie” is a snow girl, the icon of winter celebration, dressed in sparkling white, always welcomed and adored.

“Who do you want to be
when you grow up?”

The film follows Ayalguu and Egshiglen through a day of trying to sell books to stranger fairytale animals at cafes and restaurants. But it does not go so easily.

It’s winter. It’s crowded. It’s cold.

And yet, inside their mind, the world remains full of wonder. Like how they see every other person as a fairytale animal.

Egshiglen, the older sister. She’s 8 years old. Clever, careful, and carries an adult-like responsibility. But she is still a child at heart.
Then there is Ayalguu. She’s 4 years old. Diligently follows Egshiglen, accompanying her and helping sell the books.

Yet she is also someone who, almost absentmindedly, gazes at a sparkling white dress through a shop window, dreaming of becoming a Snowie.

When selling books fails, Egshiglen reinvests what little they’ve earned into small, more sellable New Year’s sparklers, just enough to believe they can go home with something in their hands.

Hope,
in this film, is both cause and result.

On their way home that day, they fall asleep on the bus, only to wake and find the bag filled with their hard-earned money, gone.

Fearing their mother’s disappointment, they stop in front of their home, unable to gather the courage to go inside.

Egshiglen sat in the corner of the yard, hugging her knees and sobbing softly. Ayalguu is there gently trying to comfort her sister.

Snow falls slowly.

As they rub their frozen hands together, a single snowflake falls down above them. Drawn to its sparkle, they forget their hardships as reality melts into fantasy, and they drift into a dreamlike world, dancing together.

When the music fades, their imagined world dissolves, shifting into the stark reality of two girls covered in snow in the corner of the yard.

The next thing Ayalguu sees is a long hospital hallway. Suddenly all those fairytale animals have turned into humans. And she waits for something she can’t quite comprehend..

The next morning, it’s still snowing. Then, faintly, someone begins humming the song Snowie.

At that moment, the world grows silent and still, as if only the two of them remain.

Snow continues to fall slowly.

“Who do you want to be when you grow up?” sounds simple. Mundane, even.

Ayalguu answered and continues to answer with the kind of clarity we often lose as we grow older. As children, we see snowflakes as shapes. As adults, we see dots. We stop looking closely. We stop believing. And my film is intended to ask: When did that happen?

This is where the title of my film carries a second meaning. Like a real snowflake, something delicate, something you only truly notice when you look closely, their dream is small but luminous.

It’s a child’s attempt to keep the world beautiful, even when the world refuses to cooperate.

Across cultures, millions of children carry adult burdens while still holding on to their dreams. I wanted to give dignity to that contradiction by letting you walk beside it for one cold day in my film.

Snowie is ultimately a film about HOPE. The stubborn kind of hope, the kind that returns every morning even when yesterday gave you every reason to quit.

And that’s why this story is personal to me.

Many of us became who we are because, at some point, someone told us, “You could become something.”And we believed them.

I did too. My name is Zolbayar, but I go by “Vinci.” It might sound silly, but my uncle once praised me as a child, saying I could become an artist, and that moment ignited my life’s journey. The artist I happened to discover was Leonardo da Vinci, not that I followed him specifically, but the idea of becoming someone like him, like many other artists, inspired me to give myself a new name.

Vinci is my version of Snowie.