Jaime Sunwoo’s short Handwritten (SDFF 2023) won the award for Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker at The American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes this year.
Handwritten was one of 38 short films from five countries that comprise this year’s overall showcase, 22 of which came from women filmmakers. The film was screened on May 24 for both Cannes Festival and Film Market audiences, and the award winners were announced two days later.
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