All of Our Shadows

All of Our Shadows is a sweet, heartwarming reminder of finding strength in community, and to be able to muster all your courage to stand up to what terrifies you the most. The sentiment is portrayed by taking the viewer into the experiences of a thirteen-year-old boy who finds it difficult to leave the house without anxiety, stressors and paranoia shadowing him wherever he goes. This fear, in turn, leads to an involuntarily self-imposed isolation from his peers, worsening his situation, and setting in motion a vicious cycle of negativity and loneliness.

The film presents it all to the viewer by way of animation, marked by soft lines and flexible boundaries as images blur into one another, to conjure the reality of a world where things seem increasingly bleak every day. In this space of grimness and despair, bird-like CCTV cameras with their beady-eyed lens, and childhood icons who threaten to devour you, now acquire intimidating proportions for a scared child.

The experience of school-going children and the various kinds of marginalisation and oppressions that they deal with, often a result of prejudices and judgment regarding their identity, is discussed in a simple manner without explicitly naming it. The film, however, remains unequivocal and direct in its message of finding love and support in one another to help you overcome the worst and most terrifying concerns of a person's life and existence.