Taking inspiration from 20th-century avant-garde experiments in graphical sound generation, the entire image in O/S functions as an optical soundtrack. Abstract motion becomes sound. What you hear is what you see.
- Optical Sound Award, Flatpack Festival, UK, 2024
- First Prize, Punto y Raya Festival, Portugal, 2023
SCREENINGS AND EXHIBITIONS
- 36th Girona Film Festival, Girona, Spain, 4-8 Nov 2024 (Official Competition)
- Animatou Festival, Geneva, Switzerland, 3-12 Oct 2024 (Experimental Animated Shorts Competition)
- T-Short Animated Film Festival, Karlsruhe, Germany, 13-15 Sep 2024 (Official Competition)
- Viborg Animation Festival, Viborg, Denmark, 9-15 Sep 2024
- LINOLEUM Animation Festival, Kyiv, Ukraine, 4-8 Sep 2024 (Experimental Animation and Video Art)
- Digerati Emergent Media Festival, Denver, USA, Sep 2024
- Kinomural, Wroclaw, Poland, Sep 2024
- Turku Animated Film Festival, Turku, Finland, 21-25 Aug 2024 (International Competition)
- Hiroshima Animation Season, Hiroshima, Japan, 14-18 Aug 2024 (Visual Poetry competition)
- Flipbook Film Festival, Skopje, Macedonia, 8-11 Aug 2024 (Official Competition)
- 7th Octopus Film Festival, Gdansk, Poland, 6-11 Aug 2024 (International Competition)
- Animaphix Festival, Bagheria, Sicily, Italy, 23-28 Jul 2024 (Experimental Competition)
- 11th Insomnia International Open-Air Animation Film Festival, Kaluga oblast, Russia, 17-22 Jul 2024 (International Competition)
- 15th Anibar International Animation Festival, Peja, Kosovo, 15-21 Jul 2024 (Experimental Programme)
- 17th Animator Festival, Poznan, Poland, 25-30 Jun 2024 (International Short Competition + Best of Punto y Raya Festival)
- Waking Life Festival, Crato, Portugal, 20 Jun 2024 (Best of Punto y Raya Festival)
- Annecy Festival, Annecy, France, 9-15 Jun 2024 (Animation Off-Limits Competition)
- Walthamstow International Film Festival, London, UK, 9 Jun 2024
- 20th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens, Greece, 15-26 May 2024
- Flatpack Festival, Birmingham, UK, 10-19 May 2024 ("Optical Sound" Programme)
- Anifilm Festival, Liberec, Czech Republic, 7-12 May 2024 (Abstract and Non-Narrative Animation Competition)
- 36th Filmfest Dresden International Short Film Festival, Dresden, Germany, 16-21 Apr 2024 ("Experiments")
- Kaboom Animation Festival, Utrecht and Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5-14 Apr 2024
- Brighton International Animation Festival, Brighton, UK, 5-7 April 2024
- 47th Internationale Grenzland-Filmtage, Selb, Germany, 4-7 Apr 2024
- Experimental Brasil, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 31 Mar 2024 (Finalist - Experimental Abstraction)
- Videoformes Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 14-31 Mar 2024
- Anatolia International Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 14 Mar 2024
- 23rd MONSTRA Lisbon Animation Festival, Lisbon, Portugal, 7-17 Mar 2024
- 13th Tehran International Animation Festival, Tehran, Iran, 3-7 Mar 2024
- 29th ifva Awards, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, 24 Feb - 17 Mar 2024 (Finalist – Animation)
- Paris International Animation Film Festival, Paris, France, 16-21 Jan 2024
- ZumZeig Art House Cinema, Barcelona, Spain, Tue 19 Dec 2023 (Best of Punto y Raya Festival 2023)
- Relentless Melt No. 31: Abstract and Experimental Animation from Hong Kong, Close-Up Cinema, London, Thu 7 Dec 2023, 20:15 (screening curated and presented by Max Hattler + Q&A with Dr Paul Taberham)
- Relentless Melt No. 30: Vertical Abstractions, Clockenflap Festival, Hong Kong, 1-3 Dec 2023 (programme of experimental animation co-curated by Max Hattler and Jay Hofmann-Forster)
- Relentless Melt No. 29: Animated Abstractions from Hong Kong, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK, Wed 29 Nov 2023, 14:00 (screening curated and presented by Max Hattler, hosted by Animation Research Centre and Prof Birgitta Hosea)
- Anilogue International Animation Festival, Budapest, Hungary, 28 Nov - 3 Dec 2023
- London International Animation Festival, London, UK, 24 Nov – 3 Dec 2023
- Punto y Raya Festival, Lisbon, Portugal, 11-15 Oct 2023
Director & Producer: Max HATTLER
Lead Animator & Sound: ZHANG Riwen
Animation & Sound: CHAN Hattie, Marvin HAUCK, HU Xiaozhi, LAU Tatia Pui Wan, LU Yujie, NG Chit, WANG Xiaobu, ZHANG Xiaoyu
Sonification Advisor & Effects: Sune PETERSEN
Country: Hong Kong, Germany
Available formats: UHD, 1080p HD, DCP
Frame rate: 24
Length: 5'00"
Year: 2023
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
"The award goes to a film that follows experimental moving image tradition, whilst also bringing something new and fresh. Perfectly paired. A coherent piece." Jury Statement by Sam Groves, Aneta Ozorek, Adriana Prodeus, Sandra Cristina Ramos and Luis Tinoco, First Jury Prize, Punto y Raya Festival, 2023
"For O/S being a well crafted and truly contemporary take on the original ideas of absolute film tradition, creating a convincing purely audio visual piece where image and sound stands together as equal non-subordinate parts and as such fulfilling exactly the meaning of the category of Optical Sound Short film." Jury Statement by Jan Kulka, Optical Sound Award, Flatpack Festival, 2024
"O/S is an abstract animation in the tradition of early pioneers of abstract electronic animation such as John Whitney or Larry Cuba. Its visual elements are kept to a minimum; black and white dots and lines. Nevertheless, it is an exciting, well- edited, clean, and strong artistic animation." Juror's Comment by Tamas Waliczky, Finalist - Animation Category, 29th ifva Awards, 2024
"Among a number of sound-focused exercises in Off-Limits program, this work for me stands out as arguably the most radical and self-consistent. Departing unreservedly from early avant-garde experimentation with optical sound, Hattler (apparently, with his Hong Kong team of students and collaborators, as usual) attempts to take that from the frames’ margins to the centerpiece, as if striving to synthesize anew a sort of audio-visual universum of digital era. “Abstract motion becomes sound. What you hear is exactly what you see” – he claims. Have to take it on trust. In any case, if not exactly pleasing music to your ears, it’s arresting enough. But also is dizzyingly mesmerizing the sheer ballet of those hissing lines, their dynamic geometry– somehow rhyming with weirdish geometric poetry in action of the cityscapes in his earlier films." Mikhail Gurevich, Annecy Festival 2024: The Best Animation Shorts, Zippy Frames, 2024
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