An animated short film by Aline Höchli - expected 2025

In a cave within an incisor, the shaman ambitiously works on a huge mural. When she runs out of paint, she goes to the wisdom tooth at the very back of the oral cavity to get new supplies. Her journey is arduous as toothpaste storms sweep through the mouth: the television presenter to whom the mouth belongs, prepares to deliver the weather report with a brilliant white smile.

With comical metaphors, Caries contemplates the complex power dynamics of a globalized world and our responsibilities regarding the unforeseen consequences of our everyday actions.

DIRECTOR

BIO

Aline Höchli specializes in animated film and illustration. She studied film in the animation department at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts HSLU, graduating in 2015. She founded KOLOSS Studio in 2016. Aline currently lives and works in Bern.

STATEMENT

I like to tell stories that distort the world as we understand it. In my film Caries, the disease that gives the story its title is not caused by acid-decalcified teeth surfaces but because the inhabitants of the oral cavity smear the teeth with wild murals. With this narrative style of mischief, I would like to encourage the audience to question our basic assumptions we have about the world. Behind the absurd plot lines, you can recognize connections to our world. While brushing his teeth, the weather presenter, for example triggers a storm for the inhabitants of his oral cavity: Many of our everyday actions have a far bigger impact elsewhere in the world than we realize at first glance. You can think about immigration policy when you see the three cavepeople who are abruptly torn from their familiar surroundings because someone spits in someone else’s soup.