Private Project

Surface Tension

A film personifying anxiety through the lens of Sameer who's facing his childhood trauma and his journey of overcoming it

  • Sampada Prashant Kokane
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 28, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    English
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes - National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
Director Biography - Sampada Prashant Kokane

Sampada Kokane grew up in Mumbai, India and currently lives in Pune, India. She's studying Animation Film Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Anxiety is a very contrasting emotion since so much chaos happens inside of you while everyone on the outside perceives you to be quiet. In the film, I want to personify social anxiety, so as to illustrate the chaos that remains invisible to other people and how to take a step to overcoming it.
The root of developing social anxiety usually lies in negative experiences in one’s childhood.
Hence, my narrative is set around experiences in school. The literal experience of going through an anxiety attack, the causes at the root of it and the process of overcoming it is what I want to showcase as a narrative to show through my film.
A toxic school environment and one’s mental struggle navigating through it leaves an impact on the person which affects them even further in life. As a person who went to a very dysfunctional school and faced bullying for the majority of my high school education, this topic is quite personal to me. Through several recallings and introspections of my lived experiences, various revelations came through regarding how one’s childhood negative experiences can impact them as an adult and that’s what I’m representing in my story.