AI-assisted Short Film | 00:03:34 | 2026

This short-film artwork depicts a young man locked out of his foreign apartment on a bright early morning. He leaves his phone and room card inside, trapped in a silent, endless hallway with rising panic. Cold dim lighting amplifies his isolation as surrounding ambient sounds fade away. Hesitant and anxious, he knocks on his elderly Korean neighbour’s door for help. Lacking a shared spoken language, the pair communicate entirely through hand-drawn sketches on blank paper. Simple doodles illustrate his predicament of being unable to unlock his room. Warm human connection blooms when the old woman offers to make a phone call for him. In a tender final touch, the protagonist draws a linking line between their two tiny figures on the page. Wordless visual empathy bridges language barriers amid loneliness and helplessness.

Yiyan Chen, Xiaojia Tang, and Yujie Cheng are visual storytellers focused on intimate, human-centered short narratives exploring loneliness, miscommunication, and cross-cultural connection. Their collaborative practice emphasizes non-verbal expression, subtle performance, and atmospheric visual storytelling, using light, sound, and minimal props to reflect shifting emotional states. They are particularly interested in fleeting moments of empathy and connection between strangers who do not share a common language.