The 2023 edition of the Semi Permanent festival launched in Sydney last week with this quizzical animated title sequence by Emmy-winning designer/AD Filipe Carvalho reflecting on this year’s theme of reformation.

Filipe Carvalho: “With everything that’s happening in the world today, I thought that reformation means a lot of different things to different people, but one thing’s for sure: change is coming.

“I was thinking about how we’re breaking free of traditional ways of doing things and also being pulled into an accelerated future.
 So I came upon with this idea of the ubiquitous 90’s office worker being taken away, lifted into the unknown by his opposite self, a dancer.

“

It’s a surreal yet melancholic representation of our working lives, and how change affects something we always assumed was certain. I come from a working-class family, manufacturing, and shopkeepers, so I know these people’s lives and how they can submit to a lifetime at the office.
 I kind of wanted to implode that.

“I also need to underscore how important Iván Llopis’ music was to the whole thing. Such a beautiful haunting track, it set the tone for everything that followed.”
 
 

 
Client: Semi Permanent

Director/animator: Filipe Carvalho

Music: Iván Llopis “The Universe is an Opaque Mirror”

Toolkit: Cinema 4D, Chaos Corona