Intruder
2025 · 1m · Canada
Directed by Max Ma
Genres: animation, drama, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A man enters a dream intending to direct it but is sidelined among sculptural props and hypnotic sound, confronting emotions he cannot script away in a 3D-animated Hothouse short.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A man trying to direct his own dream is the kind of premise that should be insufferable—except Ma actually inverts it, letting the dream *direct him* into surrender instead. Most films would milk the control fantasy; this one dismantles it with sculptural patience.
Hothouse's formal command over 3D space and sound design positions this squarely in the lineage of Švankmajer and contemporary animation that treats the unconscious as a formal problem, not a narrative convenience. One minute that feels like a full architecture.
The decision to let hypnotic sound design carry emotional weight instead of dialogue or conventional narrative beats—that's where the singular craft lives; Ma trusts the viewer to feel unscripted grief in the space between image and tone.