Video: Jason Wishnow

Jason Wishnow’s short film “The Sand Storm,” starring Ai Weiwei, in its entirety.

In 2013, after more than six years as the head of video for TED Talks, Jason Wishnow went to Beijing for a break. During a visit with Ai Weiwei he asked the artist to appear in “The Sand Storm,” a short film he had been developing. Drawn to Wishnow’s idea of water as a metaphor for the flow of information, Ai agreed to play a water deliveryman in an arid world. They shot rogue near Ai’s studio in the gritty district of Caochangdi, where a spike in Beijing’s pollution index required the crew to wear face masks and gave the film its sickly brownish yellow tint.

By the time Wishnow locked his edit, he was out of cash, so he launched an ill-fated Kickstarter campaign. Ai sent Wishnow a cease-and-desist letter, furious that his image and involvement had been exaggerated and “co-opted for promotional purposes.” Kickstarter suspended the campaign, and Wishnow returned to Beijing hoping to make amends. In a widely reprinted — and ultimately successful — open apology, he wrote, “Creative endeavors with artistic titans should not be treated lightly.” The rebooted campaign became the third-best-funded short film in the site’s history, bringing in over $100,000.

Ai hasn’t made any further comment. He doesn’t say much more than that in the film, in which he mainly drives a tuk-tuk while wearing a costume that’s part Mad Max, part Chinese laborer’s uniform. But his presence is deeply felt in “The Sand Storm” just as it is in the international art world. Asked on set how he felt about his role, Ai answered with typical mischievousness: “In life, we all deliver something.”