A young man worries about the uncertainty and potential danger that surrounds him and his daily life in the excellent animated short film All Of Our Shadows.
The world can be a scary place, especially for youngsters. It seems that there’s not a day that goes by without hearing a news report about a shocking crime being committed, with many of them happening close to where we live. Hearing about, and witnessing these shocking events can certainly affect the mental well-being of innocents who just live within a close vicinity of these incidents.
Directed by Ruth Beni and Daniel Greaves, All Of Our Shadows is a short seven-minute animated film that takes a look into a day of a young man’s life as he travels to his school, tormented by everything that is happening around him.
Opening with a radio broadcast, in which the presenters talk about their fears regarding climate change, the young man sets out for school. Haunted by what is lurking in the shadows, he runs through the busy London streets in an attempt to outrun his anxiety. The panicking continues when he reaches the school classrooms, believing that a shadowed creature is following him through the corridors and waiting for him outside the classroom windows.
That is until he finds a note in his blazer pocket. The note, written by some of his worried classmates, helps calm him down as they too share their thoughts and shed light on what actually makes them worry too, such as their future, work, exams, appearance, and so on.
The animation of All Of Our Shadows is pretty ingenious. Upon viewing, it is obvious that a lot of thought, time, and talent had gone into making the film. The ingenuity of creating a scene where characters appear on a scribbled note upon a school desk, and then the aforementioned characters jumping from note to note as they land on the desk was brilliant.
All Of Our Shadows has a great message for young people, and it is apparently being shown around school classrooms right now. I’m sure it will help children, especially teenagers, to realise that it is okay to be worried and it is especially okay to talk to others about those worries. Creative, interesting, and essential in this day and age, All Of Our Shadows comes highly recommended by us all at Screen Critix.
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