Private Project

Chronos

Amidst the suffocating smoke of WWII, another "perspective" existed. In 1945, as Auschwitz, Nanking, and Hiroshima descended into hell, unknown observers silently arrived. They did not intervene; they only recorded. As navigators of time, they return to every moment of mass destruction, scanning the ruins for an interstellar puzzle: When exactly did humanity lose itself? A digital archaeological journey beyond human comprehension.

  • MFX Films
    Producer
  • Chih Hao Shen
    Director
  • Chih Hao Shen
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Genres:
    Historical Animated Testimony, Experimental Docufiction
  • Runtime:
    8 minutes 40 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 8, 2026
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    Taiwan
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Chih Hao Shen

Chih Hao Shen is an animation and documentary filmmaker whose work explores human existence, memory, and time through restrained visual storytelling.

His debut work received recognition from Rhode Island IFF. His short film 10 Seconds was selected by In The Palace, Fantasporto, and Asolo Art Film Festival (2026). His documentary YinYang Sea won the Grand Prix at Asolo Art Film Festival (2026).

His projects have been presented in international industry contexts, including Clermont-Ferrand, Visions du Réel, Cannes Short Film Corner, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, and Oberhausen.

Beyond filmmaking, he has worked in visual design and digital product development, including licensed merchandise design for The Lord of the Rings franchise in the Chinese-language market, visual work at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and founded and leads a software development company developing animation and visual effects tools within the Apple ecosystem.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

If one day we could return to the past—
not to change it, but to understand—
what would we see?

Through the evolution of technology,
humanity learns to predict the future through AI and data,
mapping possibilities, simulating fate.
But perhaps, in another direction,
future humans are already looking back—
like monks recalling their previous lives.

Time is a container, and reincarnation is reality.
Our blood, our cries, our triumphs and our ruin—
all preserved within an endless record of time.

The future beings are both the observers
and a fragment of ourselves.
They travel back to the wounds of history,
not to judge,
but to understand the moment when we lost our humanity.

This film begins with war, but it does not end there.
The imagery is cold, still, almost silent—
as if time itself were watching.
Every replayed image
is humanity revisiting its own memory.

Cinema becomes a mirror,
reflecting the distance between reincarnation and compassion.
The future does not return to punish the past,
but to comprehend it—
to understand how, again and again,
we lose ourselves within memory.

Reincarnation is not a myth of the future—
it is the reality of the present.
War is not history’s mistake,
but the echo of human consciousness.
After every war we say,
“May there never be war again.”
Yet what hurts most is not despair,
but the endless persistence of hope.

If time itself remembers,
then we are living within its replay,
forever gazing back at ourselves.