Watch the acclaimed 2020 unforgettable animated short film O Black Hole! by director Renee Zhan. Unable to cope with the passage of time, a woman desperately draws everything she loves into herself to preserve it, eventually transforming into a “o black hole!.
🌑✨ O Black Hole! (2020) — Animated Short Film by Renee Zhan
What happens when the universe’s most mysterious force becomes a character? In O Black Hole!, filmmaker Renee Zhan transforms the scientific enigma of a black hole into a 16‑minute animated opera. It’s a cosmic fable about time, desire, and the fear of change — told through hand‑drawn animation short, stop‑motion, and haunting music.
🧭 Overview
- Genre: Animation · Opera · Fantasy 🎭
- Director & Writer: Renee Zhan 🎬✍️
- Runtime: 16 minutes ⏱️
- Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
- Language: English (sung dialogue) 🎶
- Release: 2020 (festival circuit)
- Awards & Festivals:
- 🏆 Jury Award — SXSW 2020
- 🏆 Special Jury Award — Locarno Film Festival
- Screened at Annecy, BFI London Film Festival, and more
📖 Story in Brief
- The Black Hole: Personified as a woman who swallows everything — stars, planets, even time itself.
- The Captives: Inside her, all things are frozen, trapped in eternal stillness.
- The Singularity: A lone singer (the Sun) dares to confront her, pleading for release.
- The Conflict: The Black Hole resists, terrified of change and loss.
- The Resolution: The opera crescendos into a meditation on impermanence — that beauty lies in things ending.
Synopsis: A woman terrified of the passage of time desperately tries to preserve everything and everyone she loves by pulling them inside herself, ultimately transforming into a black hole. A thousand years of stasis pass within her dark core until the Singularity finally awakens.
Staff Pick Premiere: Watch “O Black Hole!” this week as a Staff Pick Premiere! Read the Q&A with director Renee Zhan on the Vimeo Blog: vimeo.com/blog/post/o-black-hole-by-renee-zhan
Select Festivals & Awards:
Awards:
- British Animation Awards: WINNER Best Postgraduate Film
- Toronto International Film Festival: SPECIAL MENTION “SHARE HER JOURNEY” AWARD
- SXSW: SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR VISION
- Aspen Shortsfest: WINNER Best Animation
- Poitiers Film Festival: Official Selection, WINNER Best Student Film
- Cinanima: WINNER Best Student Film
- Annie Awards: Nomination Best Student Film
Official Selections:
- Animateka Slovenia
- Locarno Film Festival
- Animafest Zagreb
- Edinburgh IFF
- Hiroshima Animation Festival
- Bucheon International Animation Festival
- La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival
- Chicago International Film Festival
- Leeds International FIlm Festival
- Bogo Shorts
- Curtacinema Festival
- Piccolo Festival Animazione
- Torino Short Film Market
- The Valladolid International Film Festival
- London Short Film Festival
- Watersprite Film Festival
- Monstra Lisbon Animation Festival
- Festival Internacional de Cine de Lebu
- Mecal Pro, Barcelona International Short and Animation Festival
- Melbourne International FIlm Festival
- Tampere Film Festival
- Animac Festival
- Tricky Women/Tricky Realities
- Flickerfilm FF
🎨 Creative DNA & Style
- Mixed media: Hand‑drawn 2D animation collides with tactile stop‑motion, creating a layered, surreal cosmos.
- Operatic score: Music drives the narrative, with sung dialogue replacing traditional speech.
- Visual metaphor: The Black Hole’s body is a shifting, ink‑like void — both alluring and terrifying.
- Tone: Hypnotic, melancholic, yet playful in its surreal imagery.
🌟 Themes & Resonance
- Fear of change: The Black Hole embodies our desire to freeze time, to hold onto what we love.
- Impermanence: The film insists that endings give meaning to existence.
- Cosmic intimacy: A love story between celestial bodies, mirroring human longing.
- Art as philosophy: Animation and opera merge to ask timeless questions about mortality and beauty.
✅ Pros & ❌ Cons
Pros
- 🎯 Unique form: An animated opera — rare and bold.
- 🎨 Visual richness: Surreal, layered imagery that feels both cosmic and personal.
- 🎶 Emotional score: Music heightens the philosophical weight.
Cons
- ⏳ Abstract narrative: May feel elusive for viewers seeking straightforward storytelling.
- 🌀 Operatic style: Demands patience; not everyone embraces sung dialogue.
💡 Humanized Takeaway
O Black Hole! is a cosmic lullaby about letting go. Renee Zhan turns the universe’s most feared phenomenon into a mirror for our own anxieties about change. It’s a film that sings — literally — about the beauty of endings, reminding us that impermanence is not tragedy but truth.
🔍 Find More & Watch
- SXSW catalogue — award listing
- IMDb page — credits and details
- BFI profile — festival notes