TUNNEL VISION to Make World Premiere at LA Shorts International Film Festival
Director Yiru Deng's animated short screens at Laemmle NoHo as part of the festival's 30th edition.
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Animated short TUNNEL VISION, directed by Los Angeles-based Chinese animation director Yiru Deng, is set to have its world premiere at the 30th LA Shorts International Film Festival on August 4 at 1:00 p.m. at the Laemmle NoHo theater in Los Angeles. The film follows a young woman whose personal space and freedom of choice are progressively compressed under family expectations, using a narrowing field of vision as its central visual metaphor to examine where parental care ends and control begins. Deng has said the project was inspired by her mother's eye condition and her mother's struggle to choose her own path in life. TUNNEL VISION previously received UCLA's 2026 Best Art Direction Award and was selected for the UCLA Directors Spotlight. The LA Shorts International Film Festival, which runs July 30 through August 12, is accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.
Beginning with the culturally resonant phrase 'It's for your own good,' the film uses an ever-narrowing field of vision to explore how a woman reclaims the right to choose her own path.
TUNNEL VISION grew from a familiar yet deeply complex idea within Chinese culture: When family members say, 'I'm doing this for your own good,' where does care end-and where does control begin?
In the film, a young woman's personal space and freedom of choice are gradually compressed under mounting expectations and pressure. The world within her sight steadily contracts from an open expanse into a single narrow passage. Deng uses this visual transformation as the film's central metaphor, allowing audiences to experience the psychological process of having one's autonomy stripped away, step by step.
For many who grow up in Chinese families, love is often intertwined with responsibility, sacrifice, and expectation. Parents want their children to follow a safer, more secure path, while their children must find a balance between the future their families have envisioned and the lives they want for themselves. TUNNEL VISION does not seek to reduce this relationship to a simple question of right and wrong. Instead, it asks something deeper: When love begins making decisions about a person's future, can it also become an invisible prison?
Through a restrained yet deeply symbolic animation style, Deng transforms the unspoken emotions women experience when confronting family expectations into something audiences can see-and even feel-on screen. Although firmly rooted in a Chinese cultural context, the film speaks to an issue shared by women across cultures: how to retain the right to author one's own life amid love and responsibility.
'My mother's eye condition inspired the film's original visual metaphor, while her courageous struggle for the right to choose her own life became its emotional core,' Deng said. 'This film documents my mother's resistance to the fate prescribed for her. It also became a wordless conversation between us-a moment of mutual understanding between mother and daughter across generations.'
TUNNEL VISION previously received UCLA's 2026 Best Art Direction Award and was selected for the UCLA Directors Spotlight. Its selection by the LA Shorts International Film Festival marks the emerging Chinese animation director's arrival on the international film festival stage.
The LA Shorts International Film Festival is one of Los Angeles' longest-running international short-film festivals and is accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026, this year's festival will take place from July 30 through August 12.
ABOUT DIRECTOR YIRU DENG
Yiru Deng is a Los Angeles-based Chinese animation director and artist. She graduated from the School of Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and earned an MFA in Animation from UCLA. Working across 2D, 3D, and stop-motion animation, Deng explores the experiences of women, questions of identity, and the relationship between personal choice and social expectations. Through symbolic visual storytelling, she transforms complex psychological experiences into emotionally powerful animated works with cross-cultural resonance.
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