Ten seconds can reshape a world forever.
At the epicenter of Taiwan’s 1999 Jiji earthquake, lives split between those who ran, those who prayed, and those who never woke again. Rendered in monochromatic ink and oil textures, this animated documentary reconstructs the director’s own family records. When the earth finally stills, how do we piece back a fractured city through strokes of black and white? It is a silent meditation on fear, fragility, and the enduring warmth of memory.

This is a non-fiction animation capturing the fractures of life. I chose monochrome ink and oil painting to visualise the ten seconds of my family’s real experience during the 1999 earthquake. The fluidity of ink and the density of oil mirror the chaos and suffocation of that night—cities collapsing, and a child’s imagination becoming the only refuge. Though rooted in Taiwan, these moments are universal. Whether earthquakes, wars, or tsunamis, the human heart responds to catastrophe with the same profound pain and longing for connection. This work is a meditation on time and a letter sent from the debris of memory to the world, insisting that even when the earth breaks, we can still find one another through love.