Writer-director and multidisciplinary artist Hanaé Sanchez creates a diptych of short film and freely distributed zine rooted in her dual Khmer identity, blending live action, 2D animation and Khmer kitsch into an immersive world that asks whether the past can be rewritten.
Hanaé Sanchez got tired of waiting. “I grew tired of waiting for someone else to decide whether my project was worthy of being made,” she says. “So I channelled my heroes, and the DIY kid I still very much am.” That decision, to reach out to everyone she knew and build a team from generosity and shared belief, produced At Last: a short film and accompanying zine that together form a diptych about identity, inherited memory and the possibility of bending destiny.
The film follows Aubrey, a protagonist trying to intercept an envelope in order to alter her own fate, and in doing so mirrors Sanchez’s own exploration of her dual Khmer identity and her relationship with a parent across time and silence. The visual world it inhabits draws from Khmer kitsch and design, layering live action with a 2D animation sequence that Sanchez developed through weeks of experimentation after swearing off animation entirely. The result follows no rulebook. “Sometimes, trusting your own creative bubble is the right path,” she says.
The zine takes the form of an envelope, mirroring the film’s central plot element and extending its world into something intimate and almost confidential. Distributed freely and digitally so it remains accessible to everyone, it includes illustrations, design, a mixtape and a comics section by fellow creatives Dylan Wilson, Suzu and Sitsong Chen, each responding to the film in their own voice. Graphic designer Léa Garait handled the layout. The decision to keep the zine digital rather than printed was both practical and principled: as a self-funded independent short, free access mattered more than physical object.
The project was shot partly at a pagoda whose doors were opened by Venerable Rithisak after months of searching for the right location, a moment Sanchez describes as the point when everything came together.
“With this project, I wanted to take a stance and create an experience that doesn’t deliver a neatly tied-up story, but instead challenges the senses, raises questions, and opens doors, just as the process did for me,” she says.
She is, as she puts it plainly, “a maximalist, a lover of Art with a capital A, and someone who seeks beauty, not in a superficial sense, but in every detail, every nook.” At Last is the fullest expression of that so far.
Hanaé Sanchez is a UAL graduate, writer-director, designer and creative multi-hyphenate based in France, of Spanish and Asian heritage. Her work blends childlike imagination with a deeply personal and poetic vision across mediums and formats.
ARTIST LINKS
hanaesanchez.com
@hanaesanchez
At Last, 2026. Short film and digital zine. Written, directed, produced, edited and scored by Hanaé Sanchez. Director of Photography: Maxence Filhol. Production Designer: Axelle Brazon. Colour: Robyn Nesbitt. Props Graphic Designer and Design Layout: Léa Garait. Zine comics: Dylan Wilson, Suzu, Sitsong Chen. Starring: Hanabi and Praz Long.
