dancing on the soft knife (2025), dir. april forrest lin 林森, 4 min

Braiding together videos from their phone storage into a cut scene, april forrest lin 林森 experiments with the visual novel video game form as autofictive vessel. Here, the visual novel’s interactive possibility, with its branching storylines and multiple choices, is approached as an exercise in the narrativisation of one’s self. This cut scene symbolises and marks a rite of passage, with both the character and the player ever-loading and ever-emerging — once the loading bar is full, we are on the other side, and the next stage can begin. Who remains after years of living on autopilot? Who has been treading water in the liminal pond? What does crafting a life worth living look like in the aftermath? Created in response to OHYUNG’s song “dancing on the soft knife”, the film coalesces both artists’ journeys in rehoming their bodies, of claiming transness as theirs, into one.