Sewing Love
2023 · 9m · Japan
Directed by Xu Yuan
Genres: fantasy, silent, surrealism
A man with a human-shaped hole in his body tries to literally sew in the girl who fits it, fearing he will lose her.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A man literally sewing a woman into the cavity of his own body to prevent abandonment—this is the kind of premise that makes you recoil and then can't stop thinking about it. Silent surrealism that finds the perverse poetry in codependency and possession, refusing easy sentiment while remaining weirdly, darkly tender.
Xu Yuan's formal restraint with the surreal premise—leaning into pantomime and the texture of fabric, thread, and negative space rather than explaining the conceit—positions this within a lineage of poetic body-horror from Švankmajer to contemporary art film, where the grotesque serves as meditation on love's architecture.
The decision to keep it silent and let the tactile specificity of sewing—the repetitive needle work, the strain of pulling fabric through skin—carry the entire emotional weight transforms what could be grotesque into something almost achingly intimate, and that choice alone elevates this from concept to craft.
Festivals
- Animafest Zagreb 2023, Student Film Competition
- Hiroshima Animation Season 2024, Pan-Pacific & Asia Youth Competition selection