Private Project

The Island Gaze

On an island surrounded by mountains and sea, history never truly leaves.

Memory survives not as narrative, but as residue, distortion, and continuous overwriting.

Air raid sirens and Indigenous chants drift through a landscape where humans, animals, and unnamed presences gradually lose their stable boundaries.

What emerges is neither a record of the past nor a vision of the future, but the lingering condition of histories that continue to shape the act of seeing.

  • CHIH HAO SHEN
    Director
  • CHIH HAO SHEN
    Writer
  • MFX Films
    Producer
  • MFX Studio
    Animation
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Experimental
  • Genres:
    hand-drawn, mixed media, 2D animation, frame-by-frame, Experimental Animation, Mixed media animation, material-based animation
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 2, 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
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 work emerges from a sensory condition shaped by an island where memory is not preserved as narrative, but persists as residue within perception itself.

Sound plays a structural role in this process. Air raid sirens and Indigenous vocal chants are not used as atmospheric elements, but as carriers of layered historical traces—echoes of collective experience that continue to resonate within the present.

The work combines hand-drawn imagery with frame-by-frame photographic capture, allowing material processes such as paint, ink, and surface texture to evolve over time. Animation emerges not as pre-designed movement, but as the consequence of accumulated gestures and repeated overwriting.

This methodology reflects a necessity rather than a stylistic decision: to respond to a condition in which perception is continuously shaped by inherited, unresolved histories that cannot be fully contained or resolved.