Jaime Sunwoo’s short Handwritten (SDFF 2023) has been selectedfor The American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes this year.

Handwritten is one of 38 short films from five countries that comprise this year’s overall showcase, 22 of which come from women filmmakers. The film will be screened  on May 24, showing for both Cannes Festival and Film Market audiences.

In the film, Sunwoo uses striking animation to reflect on her personal relationship to her own handwriting. After realizing that she’s never had consistent penmanship, the young artist and filmmaker contemplates what handwriting has meant throughout history and its relevance in an increasingly computerized world.

While the American Pavilion has been a fixture at the festival for 26 years, and its Emerging Filmmaker Showcase is 15 years-old, Handwritten is part of the inaugural cohort of a new Alumni Showcase, which launched this year after a record number of submissions from alumni rolled in. Sunwoo’s Equality Tea, which examines the intertwined, fraught histories of the tea trade and the U.S. suffrage movement,was part of the 2021 Emerging Filmmaker Showcase.

HANDWRITTEN TRAILER