“HAG“ marks animator Isabella Marquart’s second animated short and serves as her grad film—an exploration of the hag, or witch, as a transformative and subversive figure in animation. Through a cyclical narrative, the film follows the hag’s abject, fluid nature as she defies the boundaries of form and identity. Inspired by folklore’s many crones, she wanders between worlds, becoming as elusive as the film itself.
Shot with a classical multiplane set-up, cut-out animation from textured, transparent papers and layered ink-washed celuloids are blended with hand-drawn, frame-byframe sequences, until the lines between realities and techniques begin to blur. Meanwhile, the main story is accompanied by cell shots, visually commenting on the character‘s journey. The interplay of techniques is accompanied by Tobias Krüger‘s haunting and permeating sound design; the hag morphs, flees, dives, and soars— always in flux.