In woodcut-like black and white images, the film deals with an individual breaking out of the conformity of a group.

In a society where everyone wears hats, one man loses his hat. From that moment on, he is excluded from the community. To regain his place in this community, he must find his hat again at all costs. This simple event plunges the entire city into a process that seems to have no end ...


This story is a reflection of our time in the form of an allegorical fable. It transports us to a strange, uniform world that has lost its meaning, and in a sense, it mirrors the situation of the modern human being, who lives in isolation and seems to have lost his identity.
In this context, the hat, something completely harmless in itself, becomes the point of crystallization for an absurd ideal of social perfection, which is not called into question. By losing his hat, this man finds himself in a state of abnormality. The man's experiences as he tries to reintegrate himself in this society, reveal the mechanisms that have led to exclusion and prevent integration.
Paradoxically, the loss of the hat raises the man above the masses. Even if he were to have an opportunity to become aware of his former state, the gaze of the others forces him to return to this old state as quickly as possible.
The theft of a hat stands for the way people strive for normality. The man has no other choice but to break the "law" in order to regain his place in society. This theft sets an endless cycle in motion: the problem is merely shifted, but no solution is found.

Xavier de l'Hermuzière (FR), born 1977. Following a stint at the computer graphics department of CNBDI in Angoulême, he entered Supinfocom in Valenciennes. For Zone 4 (Lille and Paris), he worked on the development of ads for a record label. At Renault Design, he was involved in the production of a film, in which a car of the future – Vel Satis – is three-dimensionally integrated into real scenery. He currently works as a computer graphics artist for RF2K Production.

Philippe Grammaticopoulos (F) graduated from École Superieure d'Infographie et de Communication (SupInfoCom) with honors. Studied art history/archeology at the Université Libre in Brussels; before that he studied fine art at the Institut d'Enseingement Supérieur Artistique in Brussels with an emphasis on cartoons.