Experiencing Interruptions?

Social Anxiety Disorder

A man moves through everyday environments where social interaction becomes a system of pressure, visibility, and silent judgment. Streets, crowds, awards, and institutional spaces transform into shifting psychological architectures that continuously observe and evaluate his presence.

What appears ordinary—crosswalks, gatherings, ceremonial stages—gradually becomes unstable. The act of being seen intensifies into a physical experience, where perception begins to fragment and the boundary between external gaze and internal fear dissolves.

Rather than a narrative of events, the film constructs a sensory condition of Social Anxiety Disorder, where visibility itself becomes a form of weight, and attention transforms into a collapsing spatial experience.

  • CHIH HAO SHEN
    Director
  • CHIH HAO SHEN
    Writer
  • MFX Films
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental
  • Genres:
    Watercolor Animation, Pencil Drawing
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 5, 2026
  • Country of Origin:
    Taiwan
  • Country of Filming:
    Taiwan
  • Language:
    No Dialogue
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • SCINEMA International Science Film Festival
    Deakin
    Australia
    Semi-Finalist
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.

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Director Statement

This film originates from lived experience of Social Anxiety Disorder, not as a clinical description, but as a way of understanding how visibility is experienced as pressure.

To me, social space is never neutral. It behaves like an invisible structure that evaluates presence, shapes behavior, and distorts perception. Even the most ordinary situations—a birthday gathering, a public stage, or simply crossing the street—can become moments of intense internal rupture, where attention feels physically overwhelming.

Rather than treating anxiety as a conflict with others, I understand it as a condition within perception itself. People are not threats; they are witnesses. The violence does not come from their gaze, but from the body’s inability to remain stable under it.

The film removes narrative in order to focus on sensation. Through fragmented imagery and distorted spatial logic, it attempts to remain inside this condition, rather than explain it or resolve it.