Erick Oh's 'Metamodernity' invited to French short film festival

A scene from Erick Oh's latest short film “Metamodernity” (2022) / Courtesy of Beasts and Natives Alike

By Park Han-sol

Filmmaker Erick Oh, whose short motion picture “Opera” was shortlisted for the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021 as the first-ever Korean animated film, has been invited to the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival for his latest work titled “Metamodernity.”

Oh's seven-minute movie will compete in the Young Audience category at the French festival's 2023 edition, which is slated to run from Jan. 27 to Feb. 4, according to his agency, Beasts and Natives Alike.

The film festival was launched in 1979 in the small city of Clermont-Ferrand in central France as a student film club. Over the decades, it quickly grew to be one of the most acclaimed cinematic events of its kind, along with Finland's Tampere Film Festival and Germany's International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

“Metamodernity” follows an individual born out of his consciousness who begins an internal journey in search of his true self. The surreal expedition explores the hidden meaning of life, death and transcendence, all of which are expressed through rich colors and music onscreen.

The short film had its world premiere last May at the Jeonju International Film Festival, Korea's largest celebration of indie and art house movies. It was subsequently invited to the screenings at Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin, Germany, and Animatou Animation Film Festival in Geneva, Switzerland.

After earning an MFA in Film, TV and Digital Media at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Oh joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2010. Over the following six years, he got to work on big titles such as “Finding Dory,” “Inside Out” and “Monsters University.”

Since 2016, the former Pixar animator branched out into independent projects in film and art, including the Children's and Family Emmy-nominated “Namoo” and an abstract short “Origin” that was screened at Space K in Seoul's Gangseo District this year.

He also served as one of the directors of the recently unveiled four-part Netflix series, “Oni: Thunder God's Tale,” whose plots and characters have been inspired by various Japanese folklore.

The filmmaker plans to present his Oscar-nominated “Opera” for the first time to the Korean audience next year in the form of a large-scale media art exhibition.