Pétanque

About the documentary

To watch Pétanque, produced by Mailee Osten-Tan, is to peek behind the blinds of lives so often forgotten. Innocence is the overarching theme of the first minute, with compositions of children, widely-smiled, in each other’s safe company interspersed with scenes of lives in rural Laos.

The first minute of the short film prompted memories of my own childhood, during which the only worry I had at such a young age was not having access to the playground because of routine cleaning. A stark contrast to the lives of Layoud and his friends, whose childhoods are hijacked by unexploded ordnance (UXO). Approximately 80 million—yes, you read that right—UXO from the First Indochina War remain scattered nationwide, inducing emotional and physical trauma to children and their parents whose fate was not of their choosing.

This has stymied the country's national development; Southeast Asia’s most impoverished country is still grappling with the toll from the war that broke more than half a century ago. This is not spoken about enough, but with this new short film, it prompts the conversation back up.

Photo Credit: The Invisible Scar 
Title Design by Ian Sufian Hamdan

Title Design Ideations and Sketches by Ian Sufian Hamdan

I had the opportunity to collaborate with the team to design the film’s title. I reflected much of my own childhood through the conceptualizing process, interrogating which art direction would best represent the story.

I knew vulnerability and innocence are key themes to design around, which led me to practice some muscle memory: writing with a crayon as my 6-year-old self would. While the art direction was inspired by innocence, it also drew inspiration from a more mature theme: death.

Photo Credit: Art of The Title

Photo Credit: Pablo Ferro, Art of The Title

My approach to Pétanque’s title design, done by hand with crayon on paper, was also heavily inspired by Pablo Ferro’s design for Stanley Kubrick’s movie ‘Dr. Strangelove’, which explored a similar theme, the Cold War. Ferro’s imperfect, quirky hand-lettered design was the visual language that played through the credit and title sequences; it’s somber, edgy, and ambitious. The letterings vary in length and thickness, injecting individuality into every single letter. The title design is one of Ferro’s famous works; it’s evocative and effective.

I wanted to inject the same spirit when I designed Pétanque’s title. This film reaffirms the need for regional commitment to make our part of the world a safe place for children, their families and peers.

Ian Sufian Hamdan at work

Update 25th July 2024: The documentary has since been named ‘The Invisible Scar’