How does Jeong Dahee’s The Empty draw what’s left behind?

01

The trailer lingers on the objects in the room. A closed door opens; a figure carries a rounded case and a picture past it. As things move, the space they leave becomes visible, and in the grey, charcoal-like texture even a small change of position alters the scene.

Korean animation director Jeong Dahee says her films grow out of questions from everyday life. She worked in advertising, studied animation in Paris and has worked independently as a director and producer since 2013. Here she approaches presence and loss through the door, walls and objects of a room.

Watch For

The door and the picture, more than the figure, drive the scenes. The trailer turns on how a room changes once an object leaves the frame.

About the Work

The player contains the director’s roughly 65-second trailer for the 2016 film. The full work runs 9 minutes 27 seconds and combines painting on paper with 2D computer animation. It was produced by Sacrebleu productions and Between the pictures. The director’s project page has a separate full-film link.

Archive Note

The trailer was uploaded to Vimeo in March 2016. This is a fresh introduction to an earlier work, not a 2026 release or a current screening. The embedded video is the trailer, not the complete film.