Life is a Particle Time is a Wave
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Daniel Zvereff
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A widowed watchmaker spends his final days in solitude, filling his hours with repetitive tasks as death approaches, searching for meaning in the passage of time.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Widowed watchmaker contemplates mortality through 3,200 hand-drawn charcoal frames — the title is what an MFA student writes on a napkin. But charcoal animation is genuinely hard, and SXSW didn't pick it for being trendy.
Zvereff drew roughly 3,200 sheets of willow charcoal frames at 12fps for a widowed-watchmaker meditation — that level of analog labor for an interior subject is the real article, with SXSW and Ann Arbor confirming. Quietly essential.
Roughly 2,400 frames at 12fps drawn on ~3,200 sheets of 12x18 paper in willow charcoal and pencil — that's a singular hand-made analog technique whose tactile rawness will be visible in every frame. SXSW, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and a Jury Award at the American Documentary and Animation Festival confirm the craft is recognized.
Reviews
This film is a mind fuck, and definitely leaves you in existential crisis mode... the good kind though!
An existential animated short that uses hand-drawn charcoal animation to explore grief, solitude, and the passage of time with rare tactile intimacy.
Festivals
- SXSW 2022
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2022
- Topanga Film Festival 2022, Best Short Film
- Brooklyn Film Festival 2022
- Denver Film Festival 2022
- Athens International Film and Video Festival 2022, Best Animated Film
- The Smalls Film Festival 2022, Best Animation
- American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs) 2022, Best Animated Work Jury Award