Rob Munday

Of all the dystopian worlds brought to the screen, Bianca Caderas and Kerstin Zemp’s vision of a place where touch is forbidden might be one of the most haunting I’ve ever seen. Physical contact is vital to our emotional and physical well-being – its absence linked to anxiety, depression, and even weakened immunity. In Matta and Matto, the writer/director pair explore, with surreal elegance, what a world stripped of touch might look like – and the result is as unsettling as it is mesmerising.

For the inhabitants of Caderas and Zemp’s world, relief – if it can be called that – comes from a travelling hotel run by the eccentric duo who give the film its name. Guests pay for the hotel’s forbidden pleasures with the price of a finger, which Matta and Matto then transform into tactile devices that drive their clients to ecstasy. Like addicts hooked on touch, the clients keep coming back for more. But as the hotel vanishes over the horizon, these lonely souls are left with a lasting reminder of their hunger for touch – a severe lack of fingers. 

It’s a wild vision, and yet, somehow, something deeply relatable emerges from its surreal premise. In a post-COVID world, Matta and Matto resonates as what Caderas describes as “a reminder of how important the small interactions in life with other people can be.” At once an exploration of intimacy and a reflection on human connection, the short asks us to consider what our interactions mean – both individually and collectively. As Zemp puts it, the film was made to “showcase how close madness and reality lie together.” They’ve done exactly that, creating something both disturbingly strange and unexpectedly touching – pun very much intended.

Matta and Matto is part of the YK Animation Studio roster, a collection which also includes fellow SotW picks: Coyote, In a Nutshell, Little Miss Fate and Mr. Pete & the Iron Horse.