Short Films
Bringing narrative to motion.
Cinematic glimpses of memory, emotion, and imagination.
Every film, frame, and sequence reveals the art of storytelling through perspective and light.
It’s a space where story becomes experience, and every scene feels alive.
MUSE.TV Daily — Film
Sean Baker to Debut New Short Film Sandiwara with Michelle Yeoh Through self-portrait Residency
Indie auteur and Academy Award winner Sean Baker is bringing his filmmaking into fashion-film territory with Sandiwara, a new short starring Michelle Yeoh and created as part of self-portrait’s Residency program in Penang, Malaysia.
Baker wrote, shot, and edited the film himself — a fully hands-on approach that tracks with a career built on independence and sharp human storytelling. Sandiwara stars Malaysian-born, Academy Award–winning actress Michelle Yeoh and is set to premiere in February 2026.
The project was produced through self-portrait’s Residency initiative, a cross-disciplinary program that invites independent creatives across art, fashion, architecture, entertainment, and culture to experiment and build work in a limited-time collaborative setting. For this chapter, Baker and his team immersed themselves in Penang, drawing from the textures, rituals, and everyday moments of Malay culture.
Baker describes Sandiwara as an extension of his love for independent cinema, made possible through the creative freedom of the Residency and the team behind it. self-portrait founder and creative director Han Chong calls the collaboration a natural match, pointing to Baker’s self-reliant filmmaking spirit and the Residency’s mission to support risk-taking, authentic creative dialogue, and cultural exchange.
More details about Sandiwara are expected ahead of its February 2026 release.
Why MUSE is watching: Baker’s move into a fashion residency signals a widening lane for short-form cinema — where fashion houses aren’t just funding projects, they’re helping shape them. With Yeoh at the center and Penang as the setting, Sandiwara looks positioned to spotlight Malaysian culture through a global, independent lens.
Release window: February 2026
Categories: Film • Life • Performance
Source: self-portrait
ELLY CHO - Interview
Award-Winning Visual Artist & Filmmaker
Exploring the intersection of
nature, environment, and human behavior
across painting, film, and performance.
“The porous rock, shifting wind patterns, and seasonal changes — alongside the stark contrast between urban Seoul and Jeju’s elemental nature — left a strong imprint on how I understand memory.”
1. What early landscape or memory first shaped your way of seeing — and how does it continue to shape your ecological approach today?
I grew up moving between Seoul and various natural landscapes, but I was especially affected by the raw materiality of Jeju Island’s volcanic terrain. The porous rock, shifting wind patterns, and seasonal changes — alongside the stark contrast between urban Seoul and Jeju’s elemental nature — left a strong imprint on how I understand memory. For me, memory is not something stored, but something held in the body and land, expressed through material, movement, and visual narrative.
That early experience taught me to listen through texture, silence, and repetition — a way of seeing that continues to guide how I approach ecological fieldwork today.
“What’s most alive for me now is the possibility of working across these worlds — human, nonhuman, and algorithmic — to explore how memory, sensation, and intelligence might be reimagined together.”
2. Your work spans desert systems, coastal environments, pigment processes, and AI-generated imagery. What draws these worlds together for you?
I’m drawn to materials that carry memory — pigment, salt, breath — elements that feel alive and responsive. These landscapes, whether desert or coastal, feel like thresholds: they echo the body’s own cycles of erosion, rhythm, and transformation. I often approach these places as sensorial collaborators — spaces that move and hold memory in ways that go beyond language.
My previous film Climate Hybrids explored speculative ecosystems shaped by water, migration, and adaptation. That project deepened my interest in ecological storytelling through movement, mythology, and evolving species. In Desert Futures, I continue this thread by shifting focus to the desert — not as barren, but as a site of reimagination, where ecological time, human gesture, and machine perception begin to entangle.
Rather than separating technology and nature, I’m interested in how they might reflect each other. AI in my work doesn’t aim to simulate nature, but to echo it — to listen, respond, and perhaps absorb its rhythms. These connections are still evolving. What’s most alive for me now is the possibility of working across these worlds — human, nonhuman, and algorithmic — to explore how memory, sensation, and intelligence might be reimagined together.
“The choreography was born from both emotional memory and environmental tension — particularly the internal contradictions of being between fantasy and reality.”
3. How do you experience the relationship between ecological research and personal memory when you’re creating?
For me, ecological research is not just external — it becomes deeply embodied and personal. When I begin a project, I don’t separate scientific exploration from lived experience. I enter the landscape through touch, movement, and observation. The way pigment shifts in salt air, or how breath echoes in a cavernous space — these sensory cues often unlock memory.
In my work, personal memory doesn’t stay in the background — it becomes material. A gesture from childhood, a visual from a recurring dream, or the shape of breath under water might resurface and form the seed of a scene. In my silent film sum(Island), I explored themes of isolation and self-discovery through movement, drawing from my experiences living on islands like Jeju, Manhattan, and London. The choreography was born from both emotional memory and environmental tension — particularly the internal contradictions of being between fantasy and reality.
This process continued in Climate Hybrids, where I used AI and choreography to reimagine evolutionary futures. Though rooted in scientific dialogue about adaptation and climate change, the film was shaped by my bodily memory and cultural imagination. The dancers’ movements embodied hybrid species, but also mirrored psychological states, ancestral echoes, and speculative longing.
So for me, ecological research and memory co-create one another. Memory brings intimacy to data, and research lends form to memory. Together, they shape how I build visual worlds — fragmented, rhythmic, and responsive to the emotional life of both land and body.
“It’s not about simulating nature, but creating dialogues between material intelligence and digital perception — a space where pigments and code both carry memory.”
4. What does your working process feel like — the rhythms, cues, or sensory details that guide you?
When a new idea arrives, I often begin with painting — it’s how I first externalize a feeling or visual logic. Painting becomes a way of thinking through form, and during the development of a body of work, it grows alongside the film. I think of it almost like set design or scenography in dialogue with narrative: a conversation between pigment and memory, between material and moving image.
My process is intuitive, rhythmic, and often physical. I work through movement, pigment, and listening — not only to sound, but to how materials behave. I might begin by walking a
coastline, collecting soil or color, observing how it reacts to light or water. These gestures accumulate into layered forms: performance, image-making, and sound.
I think of it as a kind of ecological choreography — not imposed, but responsive.
At the same time, my practice is evolving to include collaborations that translate these sensory experiences into other languages — ones that are not strictly visual or verbal. I’m working with systems that interpret memory, breath, and rhythm through computational means — using tools that mirror how the body feels, rather than just how it appears.
This allows the work to exist in dual dimensions: tactile and algorithmic, grounded and speculative. It’s not about simulating nature, but creating dialogues between material intelligence and digital perception — a space where pigments and code both carry memory.
“This translation between lived experience and speculative space is central to how I work.”
5. Many of your pieces move through dreamlike cultural landscapes. What draws you to these liminal spaces?
I’m drawn to places that hold emotional memory from my life — Seoul, Jeju Island, London, and New York. These locations shape how I perceive space and time. My work often reflects moments of personal significance, but those memories take on a dreamlike quality — layered with desire, imagination, and the unconscious.
This translation between lived experience and speculative space is central to how I work. I’m interested in environments where memory, loss, and transformation coexist — where what’s visible is shaped by what’s absent. In upcoming projects, I explore landscapes like abandoned architectures, submerged coasts, and desert ruins — places that feel suspended between histories.
These in-between zones allow the poetic and political to converge. They’re fragile, haunting, and speculative — and that’s where I feel most connected creatively.
“What feels most urgent is reclaiming how we store and transmit memory — especially in a time of ecological crisis and AI acceleration. I’m interested in what it means to create an alternative dataset — not based on surveillance or optimization, but on pigment, breath, and ecological rhythms.”
6. With upcoming projects exploring climate futures and hybrid ecologies, what feels most urgent or alive in this moment of your practice?
What feels most urgent is reclaiming how we store and transmit memory — especially in a time of ecological crisis and AI acceleration. I’m interested in what it means to create an alternative dataset — not based on surveillance or optimization, but on pigment, breath, and ecological rhythms. Desert Futures is my attempt to imagine a future in which land holds intelligence — where AI doesn’t overwrite memory, but listens to it. What feels alive now is the possibility of building systems of knowledge that are material, embodied, and deeply relational.
ELLY CHO
Visual Artist & Filmmaker
Interview
Land holds memory. The body listens.
https://www.ellycho.com/
https://www.instagram.com/choelly/
© MUSE.TV
🔥The Flame
A Cinematic Short Story by MUSE.TV
She didn’t run from the fire.
She became it.
The Flame is a quiet ignition — the moment before becoming.
Set in a field of embered light and rising wind, this short film follows a woman walking not away from the fire, but with it — wrapped in stillness, marked by memory.
This is not a beginning.
It is a return.
She did not flee the fire.
She stepped toward it — slowly, without fear.
Not to be burned, but to remember.
The dusk held its breath as she emerged — a silhouette wrapped in wind and linen, framed by a low-burning light. There was no urgency in her steps. Only rhythm. Only reverence.
The golden field behind her whispered of past lives and future calls. The air shimmered, not with heat, but with memory. This wasn’t destruction. It was invitation.
The fire did not roar. It hummed. A quiet presence at her back, as if it knew it had been waiting not to consume, but to be seen.
With every step, her breath deepened. Her body softened. Her soul stirred.
This was the First Flame.
Not the beginning of a story — but the return to one.
She paused just long enough for the wind to catch her robe. Then she walked on.
Not away from the fire.
With it.
As it.
✧ The Flame
This is not a fire that consumes.
It’s the warmth that calls you forward.
There are sparks that shout —
and others that glow quietly until you’re ready.
This flame is not for show.
It’s for becoming.
Not destruction — but ignition.
We speak of change like it must be sudden.
But beginnings often arrive in silence —
soft ground, golden air,
a pulse beneath the skin.
This is that moment.
You don’t need to roar to rise.
You only need to listen
for the heat within.
Let this be your permission —
to move gently,
to begin again.
✧ The Soundtrack
1. Emberlight
The Moment the Flame Begins
2. Dusk Bloom
Where Softness Holds Strength
3. Kindling Air
Breath, Pause, and the Spark Between
4. Through the Quiet Veil
Steps Taken Without Sound
5. Flicker/Become
The Dance of Hesitation and Rise
6. The Warmth Within Reach
A Return to What Was Always There
She Carries the Cosmos
A MUSE Journal Visual Offering
Wrapped in velvet light and guided by unseen stars, She Carries the Cosmos is a cinematic meditation on quiet power, presence, and the feminine force that shapes without shouting.
She does not chase light—
she remembers she was made from it.
With hair like stardust and a gaze that sees through time,
she moves through the world as if she’s lived it all before.
Not loud. Not hurried.
A presence—etched in silence, dressed in velvet.
She Carries the Cosmos is a cinematic meditation on the woman who lives between realms—who doesn’t follow seasons, she is the season.
This short film is part of MUSE Journal’s Summer Series:
a constellation of visual stories exploring beauty, softness, sovereignty, and the divine.
✧ Lifestyle Notes
Shot in velvet light and cosmic tones, this piece weaves together timeless fashion, glowy skin, and the aura of a modern muse.
Everything is intentional. Soft layers. Bare shoulders. Jewelry that feels like an heirloom from another universe.
—
✦ Featured Elements
Wardrobe: Ethereal draping, sheer textures, celestial silhouettes
Beauty Direction: Luminous skin, rose-lit blush, soft shimmer highlight
Mood: Dreamy, slow, magnetic—like the space between inhale and exhale
Ideal Pairings: Ambient music, moon rituals, silken loungewear, gold-framed mirrors
—
☽ Watch. Breathe. Remember Who You Are.
This is not just a film. It’s a reflection.
For the woman who carries stars in her spirit and doesn’t need to be seen to be known.
✦ Compositions by MUSE.TV
Where cinema becomes design.
Each Composition is crafted as a living moodboard — arranged in light, shadow, and sound. Designed to immerse, they evolve beyond still images into cinematic experiences that linger long after the frame.
-
The Flame
Born of shadow and spark.
A cinematic moodboard of allure, intensity, and firelight energy.
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Golden Stillness
Where silence glows.
A meditation in light — frames that linger, shimmer, and stay.
-
Autumn City Lights
Neon over falling leaves.
A cinematic ode to the season where urban glow meets autumn’s hush.
MUSE.TV
“Mirage Queen”
Festival Series
The Crystal Sovereign’s Descent
(Part 1 of 5 in the “Mirage Queen” Series)
The desert held its breath as she appeared, a vision carved from starlight and glass. Her crown, a mosaic of sapphire and moonstone, refracted the dying sun into a thousand prismatic shards. The sands shimmered beneath her, as if bowing to her arrival.
She was no mere traveler. Her mirrored lenses, catching the horizon’s fire, seemed to peer through the veil of reality itself. The golden dunes whispered her titles—Sovereign of Shattered Light, Weaver of Mirage—though none dared speak them aloud. Her necklace, heavy with ancient gold and a single turquoise heart, pulsed with a rhythm older than the mountains that framed the sky.
The festival awaited her, its tents aglow with lantern light, its music a distant hum. But she stood still, her crystalline veil fluttering like wings of a phantom bird. She heard it first—the melody beneath the melody, a song woven into the desert’s bones. It called to her, and she answered with a step, her bare feet leaving no trace on the sand.
Tonight, the Mirage Festival would awaken.
Tonight, the desert would sing.
And she, the Crystal Sovereign, would lead its chorus—until the dawn stole her away, as it always did, into the light from which she came.
Part 2 >
Dance of the Celestial Veil
(Part 2 of 5 in the “Mirage Queen” Series)
The first note of the festival’s drums echoed across the dunes, a heartbeat that stirred the floating orbs above. They pulsed with light—turquoise, amethyst, gold—casting a celestial glow over the sands. The crowd, draped in silks and starlight, turned as one to the center of the gathering, where she stood.
The Desert Siren’s crystalline veil shimmered with every step, refracting the orbs’ light into a kaleidoscope of colors. Her mirrored lenses caught the reflections, and through them, she saw the threads of the universe itself—woven into the music, the sand, the sky. The jewels in her crown hummed louder now, resonating with the cosmic rhythm.
She began to dance.
Her movements were liquid starlight, each gesture pulling at the fabric of the night. The orbs above trembled, their glow intensifying as if drawn to her. The crowd felt it too—a vibration beneath their feet, a song beyond hearing. Her necklace, heavy with its turquoise heart, glowed with an inner fire, channeling the energy of the desert’s ancient magic into her steps.
With a sweep of her arm, the sands rose, swirling into patterns that mirrored the constellations. With a turn, the floating orbs descended, orbiting her like planets around a sun. She was no longer just the Siren of the Mirage—she was its conductor, its creator, its queen. The music bent to her will, weaving a melody that spoke of forgotten worlds and unseen skies.
But as the dance reached its crescendo, a shadow flickered in her lenses—a warning from the stars. Something stirred in the void beyond the orbs, something that had heard her song. The festival was hers, but the night was not yet done with its secrets.
Tomorrow, she would vanish, as she always did.
But tonight, the cosmos danced with her—and it would not forget.
Part 3 Reveal
The Crescent’s Call
(Part 3 of 5 in the “Mirage Queen” Series)
The final note of her dance lingered in the air, a shimmering thread that tethered the festival to the stars. The floating orbs, still orbiting the Desert Siren, dimmed as the crescent moon rose, its surface a mosaic of fractured light. She tilted her head, the crystalline hat atop her head catching the moon’s glow, its feather-like shards pulsing with colors—emerald, violet, flame.
The crowd stood in reverent silence, their breaths visible in the cooling desert air. They had witnessed the impossible: sands that danced, stars that bowed, a melody that wove the night into something alive. But the Siren’s mirrored lenses reflected more than their awe. They showed her the shadow from her dance—a presence stirring beyond the crescent, drawn by the cosmic song she had unleashed.
She stepped forward, her iridescent gown trailing behind her like liquid glass. The necklace at her throat, its turquoise heart now blazing, hummed with a new urgency. The crescent moon was no mere celestial body—it was a gateway, a call. And she, the Siren of the Mirage, was its key.
Her hat’s shards began to vibrate, each one singing a note of the desert’s ancient magic. The moon responded, its light bending into a beam that bathed her in prismatic hues. The crowd gasped as her form shimmered, her veil lifting as if caught in an unseen wind. For a moment, she was more than a queen—she was a conduit, a bridge between the sands and the void.
But the shadow grew closer, its whispers now audible in the silence. It spoke in a tongue older than the dunes, a warning and a promise. The festival had awakened something it could not contain. The Siren lowered her gaze, her lenses reflecting the crescent’s fractured light. She had danced for the desert, for the stars—but now, she would answer the moon’s call.
Tomorrow, she would vanish, as always.
But tonight, the crescent claimed her—and the festival would never be the same.
Part 4 Reveal
Echoes of the Mirage
(Part 4 of 5 in the “Mirage Queen” Series)
The festival awoke to a changed dawn. The tents, once vibrant with lantern light, now shimmered with an otherworldly sheen, as if kissed by the stars the Desert Siren had summoned. The crowd gathered at the edge of the dunes, their murmurs rising like a tide. They had seen her dance, felt the sands shift, watched the crescent moon claim her—but now, they saw the aftermath.
She stood at the festival’s heart, her crystalline gown catching the first rays of sunlight, scattering them into a prism of colors across the sand. Her necklace, its turquoise heart still glowing faintly, pulsed with the echoes of the cosmic song she had woven. The intricate headpiece, a geometric shard of light, gleamed atop her flowing hair, a reminder of the celestial forces she had invoked.
The people of the Mirage Festival looked to her, their eyes wide with awe and fear. The air still hummed with the melody she had drawn from the desert’s bones, but it was fractured now, laced with a dissonance that made the mountains tremble. The shadow she had glimpsed in her mirrored lenses—the one the crescent moon had warned her of—had grown closer. Its whispers seeped into the festival, a low, chilling chant that spoke of hunger and void.
She turned to the crowd, her gaze steady behind her reflective lenses. They called her the Siren of the Mirage, the Weaver of Starlight, the Queen of the Sands. But now, they needed more than her dance—they needed her protection. The festival’s magic, once a celebration, had become a beacon, drawing the shadow from beyond the stars.
The Desert Siren raised her arms, her gown shimmering like a second sky. The sands responded, swirling into a protective barrier around the tents. The crowd held its breath as the dissonance grew louder, the shadow’s presence pressing against the edges of the festival. She knew she could not stop it—not yet. But she could hold it at bay, for one more night.
Tomorrow, she would vanish, as she always did.
But tonight, the festival needed its queen—and the shadow would learn her name.
Part 5 Reveal
The Pyramid’s Light
(Part 5 of 5 in the “Mirage Queen” Series)
The dawn broke with a golden fire, illuminating the ancient pyramid that loomed over the Mirage Festival. Its apex glowed, a beacon of light that mirrored the turquoise heart of the Desert Siren’s necklace. She stood at the edge of the dunes, her crystalline gown shimmering like a frozen wave, her hair whipping in the desert wind. The travelers in the distance paused, their silhouettes small against the pyramid’s grandeur, watching her with a mixture of reverence and dread.
The shadow from the void, the one she had held at bay, now loomed over the festival, its form a writhing mass of darkness that swallowed the stars. Its whispers had become a roar, demanding the magic she had awakened. The festival’s tents trembled, the sands quaked, and the crowd looked to her—their Siren, their Queen—for salvation.
She stepped forward, her mirrored lenses reflecting the pyramid’s light. The necklace at her throat pulsed, its rhythm syncing with the glow of the ancient structure. The pyramid was no mere monument—it was a relic of the desert’s magic, a seal against the void. And she, the Siren of the Mirage, was its final guardian.
With a gesture, she summoned the melody she had woven through the festival—the song of the sands, the stars, the crescent moon. Her gown flared with prismatic light, and the pyramid responded, its light intensifying into a beam that pierced the shadow. The darkness screamed, its form unraveling as the desert’s magic surged through her, channeled by the relic’s power.
The crowd shielded their eyes as the light enveloped her, her form becoming a silhouette of pure radiance. The shadow was banished, the festival saved—but the cost was clear. Her time in this world was over. The pyramid’s light faded, and with it, the Desert Siren began to dissolve, her crystalline form scattering into motes of light that drifted toward the horizon.
The travelers watched as the last of her essence vanished, carried by the wind to the stars. The festival was silent, the sands still. She had come, she had danced, she had fought—and now, she was gone. But the pyramid glowed softly, a testament to her sacrifice, and the Mirage Festival would forever sing of the queen who saved it.
Electric Muse
Where sound becomes light.
In Electric Muse, sound transcends form — pulsing through color, reflection, and rhythm.
What begins as vibration becomes vision: an aura of motion and melody that blurs the line between music and art.
A cinematic meditation on energy, emotion, and the unseen frequencies that move us.