In 1925, French linguist François-Marie Savina embarked on an ethnographic journey through Hainan, documenting the island’s local Li culture in his seminal work Monographie de Hainan. A century later, AI revives his digital avatar for a cross-cultural dialogue with a modern Li Brocade designer, and an unprecedented cultural experiment is born. A Voyage Through Time debuts online Aug. 8, 2025.

The short film A Voyage Through Time: Savina's Hainan Island Monograph redefines digital humanities by blending archival rigor with artistic narratation. “The video stages a fictional encounter between Savina and contemporary Li Brocade designer who weaves Li brocade motifs into futuristic fashion,” said the film’s scriptwriter.

Detailed AI recreation and restoration of historic photos.

Using historic photographs of Hainan, the Chinese production team revive authentic 1920s Hainan landscapes. With a MoE (Mixture-of-Experts) model serving as a key technical and artistic solution, the film captures the physical appearance of an oil painting, while maintaining the accuracy and consistency of the historic scenes and human figures, including faces, facial expressions, hands, and clothes.

"As Hainan is bidding for the Hainan Tropical Rainforest and Traditional Settlements of the Li Ethnic Group to be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, we wanted to ‘paint’ every stroke to honor both Savina's legacy and Li cultural creativity." explains the film’s director.

In 2022, the Hainan Tropical Rainforest and Traditional Settlements of the Li Ethnic Group was placed on UNESCO’s tentative list for World Heritage sites—the first formal step toward nomination. A legal framework for protecting Li traditional settlements took effect in the following year, giving the centuries-old villages legal protection.