Yoriko Mizushiri: A Gentle Touch

A Gentle Touch is a collection of two short films, Kamakura and Maku, from Yoriko Mizushiri. Her hand-drawn animations use surrealist poetics rather than narrative to explore sensuality, fetish, and melancholy. Each film uses dreamlike settings, fluid movement, soft-focused lines, and pastel colors to illustrate tiny moments and interactions in the imaginary and sensuous world she creates. Mizushiri’s inhabitants fluctuate between figures, parts of bodies, food, and unrecognizable but familiar shapes. Her lack of background imagery or unnecessary details focuses the viewers’ attention on these intimate exchanges, filled with both anxiety, awkwardness, desire, and joy.