One Minute MovieOct 2023 -- Nov 2023
This film collection project consists of four films, most of which draw inspiration from personal experiences to create a series of animations and videos. The works primarily revolve around psychological and emotional issues as well as family-related challenges. It is an honest conversation with one's inner self, a journey of attempting to confront and expose personal vulnerability and inner conflicts.
1. I am a Cow
At the beginning of my third year in university, I was under immense pressure due to my mother’s high expectations for me to not only graduate successfully but also secure admission to a postgraduate program. Overwhelmed by the stress, I developed a pattern of binge eating followed by purging. Each time the food I ate surged back from my stomach, I felt like "a cow" ruminating. I didn’t want to expose my vulnerability but, at the same time, yearned for help and a way to express the distress of my unhealthy lifestyle to ease my tightly wound emotions.
This led me to create this animation. It doesn’t feature realistic imagery but instead uses childlike doodles and a simple, whimsical hand-drawn style to narrate an experience that was deeply painful for me.
2. Trapped in a Waking Dream
During the summer, I witnessed a severe argument between my parents. I hid in my room, afraid to confront the truth, but the next day, they acted as if nothing had happened. Only I was left, trembling in a tense silence, fearing another outburst.
Before summer ended, I found an old camera with footage of happy moments from my childhood, which felt unreal. I longed to escape into those memories, but instead, I faced my parents pretending nothing had changed—and myself, trapped in a nightmare.
The film was created by editing old footage recorded by my father and my own clips from a vintage camera. The narration is a poem I wrote, reflecting my sorrow and helplessness.
3. Wedding Fantasy
This film is about my parents and the emotional impact of their arguments during the summer, which left me fearing their divorce. Growing up, they always fought and threw things, so I became curious about why they got married. I found old footage of them when they were young, including their wedding video, and watching it brought tears to my eyes. They seemed so in love back then—how did things change?
I combined audio of wedding blessings from the 2000s with videos of my parents from their youth and wedding. I also created a small sculpture using a Polaroid emulsion lift to transfer an image of a hand with a wedding ring onto an apple, pierced with pins to symbolize the wounds in their marriage. The sculpture rotates over the wedding footage, like a warning, with the date of their wedding appearing in the video.
4. Yin Yang
This film is also inspired by my parents, whose tumultuous relationship seems to embody a kind of balance, much like the yin and yang of Tai Chi—attracting and repelling each other. In this work, I used the apple as a symbol of desire, with actors Winson and Rina consuming each other’s desires, only to quarrel over them. Yet, despite the conflict, they reconcile in the end. I also incorporated a seesaw element to represent the shifting power dynamics in their relationship.
For the soundtrack, I chose the classic tango piece "Carmen", as the dance’s mutual tension between partners mirrors the emotional pull and push in a relationship.