About Ages of Sand

The main site for Ages of Sand is here:

Ages of Sand is about a young girl learning the value of water in a desolate world.

Today our children encounter a kind of living penance as we alter the balance of life on earth. In the film Ages of Sand, it is only by seeing the healing powers of water in a dream that a young girl able to wake with an understanding of the delicate balance between water and life.  AOS explores the fantastic imagination of a child as a tool for change and transcendence.

The story for Ages of Sand evolved from a Buddhist tale called the Sai-no-Kawara-kuchi-zu-sami-no-den. The Sai-no-Kawara, or The Dry Riverbed of Souls, exists in one of the six purgatory realms of rebirth in Japanese Buddhism.

In the 300 year old hymn was a subtle environmental parable pertaining to modern children growing up on an increasingly ravaged planet. In the hymn of the Sai-no-Kawara deceased children enact penance in the desolate purgatory of the riverbed.

With this vivid image in mind as the inspiration for the film, and with a fanaticism for details, Jon Sager and his team set about  to create the technical specifications that would bring the story to life. The film is a marriage of puppetry, stop animation control, CG animation, and live action.