"Drawing picture stories is quite similar to film directing," Wang says. "A picture story is a combination of scripting, directing, acting and artistic editing - but paintings cannot compete with movies in either presentation or communication."

In 1985 he became an assistant professor at the Academy but never let go of his dream to make films.

His opportunity came four years later when he was accepted the graduate program in art education at Concordia University in Montreal. There, he was introduced to Frederic Back, one of the most famous animation artists in the world and also an environment enthusiast.

Wang became an assistant to Back for the short animated film The Mighty River, focusing on environmental protection and spent three years drawing more than 200,000 sketches. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1994 and won many different prizes. Wang, at that time, was already an art designer at Canada Broadcasting Corporation in Montreal and could have settled for a very comfortable life - but he gave it up.

"I wanted to make my own film," Wang says.

He spent one year finishing his first film Sunrise Over Tian'anmen Square.

It was an autobiographical animated documentary using drawings and photos. Wang talked about his "Red Dream" in the first half and then moved on to the social changes in China during the opening-up era.

"For as long as I can remember, 'revolution' has been the word most important to me. To become a revolutionary artist was my childhood dream and this dream has continued to affect me to this day." His grandfather and parents, incidentally, were all in the army.

"Wang's animated half-hour documentary about growing up in China during the monumental upheavals of the '60s to '80s is made with so much love and skill," commented the Montreal Gazette. Wang's unusual creation won him Oscar nomination in 1999.

He made his third documentary from 2003-2005 entitled They Chose China, a documentary about 22 prisoners-of-war (POW) - 21 American and one British - who 50 years ago refused to be repatriated after the Korean War and chose to stay in China instead.

"It was a childhood encounter that inspired me," Wang says of seeing his first Westerner in Jinan when he was in his teens. "I sometimes met the man riding a green bicycle while I was on my way to my painting class at the children's center," he says. "He was nice to everyone."

At that time there were very few foreign faces in the city. The man became quite famous in Jinan and people called him "Lao Wen". He was James Veneris, one of 22 POWs who got married, worked at a factory in Jinan, spoke American-inflected Chinese, and is now buried at a public cemetery near Jinan. Unfortunately most POWs left China and returned home before the "cultural revolution". Many of them also suffered a lot because they were considered traitors back home because they had lived in China.

"In my mind they are heroes," says Wang. "They tried to build a bridge between enemies. They are not supposed to be forgotten."

Wang's documentary explored the fate of three such former POWs, only one of whom, David Hawkins, is still alive and returned to China with him.

In the 52-minute documentary Wang unearthed rare and fascinating footage that put those former POWs' time in China into a different perspective. His TV documentary won the Golden Gate Award for Best TV Feature Documentary at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival in 2006 and many other awards.

"I'm a lucky person," he says. "I've been doing what I've been interested in since my childhood."

(China Daily November 26, 2008)