Invisible Touch

2024

4K UHD video, 5.1ch audio

Duration: 22 minutes

February 2024 at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo

June 2024 at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth

June 2024 at The Norwegian Short Film Festival, Grimstad

June 2025 at Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing

Synopsys

Invisible Touch stages a series of tantrums in the everyday life of Norwegian 7-year-old Luka. The outbursts unfold in various private and public spaces: a restaurant, a museum, a beach, a hotel room, a cabin, a home. Luka doesn’t want to do what their parents say, refuses to go to bed, to come home, to eat... The real source of these rages is hard to discern, as is the best way for a parent to respond to them.

A child’s tantrum is normally treated as an interruption, a disturbance of family routine or public space – something to be ignored. In this film the tantrum becomes instead the whole focus: a ritual of refusal and negotiation, which becomes only more mysterious through its inevitable repetition. Inspired by Brechtian theatre techniques, Luka and their parent are portrayed across the film by three different sets of actors. The shifts between the pairs complicates these apparently simple dramas, opening them to other registers of comedy and bathos. At the same time, repeating the core conflict begins to suggest a more open-ended set of questions around the agency of children, the regulation of our emotions and what it means to satisfy (or thwart) a desire.

The character of Luka is inspired by Kosugi’s interest in how neurodiverse individuals often have difficulty meeting the expectations set by normative social standards, and not only in childhood. Often, as in the scenarios from Invisible Touch, the reasons why such individuals face challenges in these situations are not visible at a glance. While the film carefully portrays the specificity of these situations, with all their nuances of identity and class, it avoids diagnosis or judgement. Instead, it invites the audience to reflect: what might be hiding in plain sight?

Credit

LUKA (Child): Christoffer Freuchen / Qiu Otto / Kaja Cecilie Joa

KIM (parent): Maria Hilde / Patrick Langseth / Line Henriksen

ISA (sibling): Johanne Freuchen / Naimah-Raine Otto / Oscar Håkon Joa

Writer/Director: Daisuke Kosugi

Producer: Maiken Håvarstein

DOP: Marte Vold

Editor: Katrin Ebersohn

Sound: Rune Baggerud

Casting: Camilla Glaster / Camilla Casting

Production Coordinator: Julie Pichard and Maria Birgitte Simonsen

1st Assistant Camera: Fredrik Fossum Hallerud

Gaffer: Roar Midtlien

Makeup artist: Katrine Johnsen Grindeland

Cornet player: Solveig Dalland and Rita Eida Martinsen

Colorist: B ianca Rudolph

Post producer: Tom Joelsen

Translation and subtitle: Ekaterina Pliassova

Comissioned by

Kunstnernes Hus and The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA)

Produced by

VIDEONOVA

With support from

Sørnorsk filmsenter, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Norsk Kulturfond, Fond for lyd og bilde,

Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Bergesenstiftelsen, Ingrid lindbäck langaards stiftelse,

Agder fylkeskommune, Kunstnernes Hus

Reviews:

Setter oppdragelsesspørsmål i spill,by Carina Elisabeth Beddari, Morgenbladet

Invisible Touch,by Ingrid. S Holter, ZETT Filmtidsskrift

Sur pike, by Andreas Brevik, Kunstkritikk