🏆WINNER Best Animation Film Award
Canberra Film Festival

🏆WINNER WYSIWYG 3D Production Design or Costume Design for a Short Film, Music Video or Web Series Award
Australian Production Design Guild (APDG) Awards

🥈SILVER WINNER Art, Innovation and Specialised Cinematography
Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) NSW Awards

A Queer, Stop-Motion Love Story

If/ When is a surreal, time-bending exploration of love, fate, and what it means to hold on when everything is slipping away.

Ollie Quatch didn’t experience time like everyone else. Untethered from a linear reality, they drifted through moments out of order, glimpsing futures that may or may not come to pass. But when they saw a future without Az, the one person who made them feel grounded, Ollie refused to accept fate as final.

From a hospital where their very existence was deemed an anomaly to a fridge shop where their love first sparked, Ollie scrambled through fractured moments, trying to rewrite what felt inevitable. Each shift in time was a gamble, each choice a ripple that could bring them closer to, or further from the person they loved most. And with every shift, Ollie watched Az slip further away, not just from them, but from themself.

The Animation & Production

If/When was brought to life through meticulously crafted stop-motion animation, shot entirely inside Knuckles Animation Studio in Redfern at Woodburn Creatives. Every frame was carefully composed, capturing the tactile beauty of physical materials while enhancing the film’s dreamlike quality. The film embraced a mixed-media aesthetic, featuring paper textures, detailed miniature sets, and fluid character movement to reflect Ollie’s fragmented relationship with time.

At Knuckles Animation Studio, we have always been passionate about pushing the boundaries of stop-motion storytelling. Our team worked extensively with an assortment of handcrafted puppets, practical lighting techniques, digital rig removal and compositing methods to create a world that felt both intimate and expansive. Every detail, from the way light fell on a miniature set to the subtle imperfections in hand-painted textures, added to the film’s emotional weight.

A Collaborative Vision

If/When is a film by ARACOURT Studio and a Knuckles Animation Production.

This film was made possible by a passionate and skilled team of trainees, who worked across every department, learning and contributing to the intricate craft of stop-motion animation. Their hard work and fresh perspectives helped shape the film into what it has become, demonstrating the power of collaboration in independent animation.

If/When was supported by Creative Partnerships Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund, making it possible to bring this ambitious story to life.