The Way Everything Was
About this campaign
The Way Everything Was - A Personal Bullying Story
This short documentary revisits a powerfully formative event in my life: being bullied daily in a racially-charged high school classroom over 4 decades ago.
It starts with my recollection of what happened to me, the recounting of which is then bolstered by the shared experience of two other former students from the same class. Ultimately, a psychiatrist-expert in the long-term effects of bullying helps to elucidate the extent to which the lasting wounds that I perceived were actually a consequence of what I endured.
Those questions that have lingered in my mind suffuse the film with an introspective yet menacing aura, with inspiration taken from both period genre movies and the whole idea of "nature" and/vs. "nurture". Whether or not we can all build a world devoid of bullying is a proposition left for audiences to ponder.