“An artist whose intimate yet extravagantly detail-rich puppet-based performances include elements of sculpture, light projection, live music, and his own voice and movement. With narrative structures resembling the half-dream consciousness of curious childhood, yet reflecting adult joys and anxieties and a mature bricolage craftsmanship.” - LA WEEKLY
Zach Dorn is a filmmaker and performing artist who creates miniature melodramas that explore the underbelly of childhood nostalgia through the disappointed eyeballs of adulthood. With puppets, paper dioramas, and a grotesque DIY craftsmanship, Dorn builds interweaving narratives tangled in homesickness and pop culture. During the early 2000s, Dorn founded the puppet troupe Miniature Curiosa in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, staging performances inside repurposed photo booths, bowling alleys, and abandoned schoolhouses. His multimedia puppet performances also premiered at Ars Nova (New York), St. Ann’s Warehouse (New York), and REDCAT (Los Angeles).
In 2016, theatre and film director Julie Taymor sent Dorn to Japan to explore the role of automata in Shinto ritual. During his research, he shifted course and apprenticed with psychoanalyst and experimental theatre director Kuro Tanino, before ultimately joining the Fusuma Karakuri Preservation Society, an organization dedicated to documenting the remaining fusuma karakuri performances across Shikoku.
His first stop-motion film, Charlotte, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021. His films, Moomin and Wild Heart 1981/2020, have screened and received awards from True/False, Slamdance, and Aspen Shorts. His recent film, Long Live Livia, had its North American premiere at AFI in October and received the prestigious High-Risk Award from Switzerland's Fantoche International Film Festival in September, 2025. Long Live Livia is currently touring as part of Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation.