All Are Human (2017)
★★★★½ — All Are Human (2017)
The credits rolled and I didn't move. I just sat there and let it wash over me. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, you know you've seen something that matters. All Are Human is one of those films, and the fact that it clocks in at around twenty minutes makes that feeling all the more remarkable and, frankly, a little gutting.
This is a short film from the Central African Republic, and it's based on true accounts. I want to keep coming back to that. True accounts. Not an inspired-by, not a loosely-based-on, not a reimagining. Someone lived through what you're watching. Maybe more than one someone. And that knowledge sits heavy on your chest the entire time.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: films are either an escape from reality or a mirror held up to it. There's genuine value in both. But when a film plants its feet firmly in the latter camp, when it refuses to look away from the world as it actually is for the people living through it, something shifts in how you receive it. You stop watching as a passive audience member and start watching as a witness. All Are Human demands that of you.
The cinematography is genuinely stunning. There's a beauty to the images that sits in uncomfortable but purposeful tension with the horror of what's being depicted. The soundtrack does something similar. It's haunting and melancholic in a way that lingers well after the film has ended. It doesn't manipulate you into feeling something. It simply creates a space for the emotion that's already there, waiting. The performances match that tone. There's no theatrical grandeur here. The acting feels lived-in, honest, and raw in the best possible way.
The story itself is about people who get drawn into conflict, who are forced to carry out acts that no human being should ever have to carry out or witness. And what strikes you is that nobody wins. There are no heroes riding off into the sunset. There are only people, caught in the machinery of something far bigger than any one of them, trying to survive it. The title says it all, really. All are human. That's the point. That's the whole point.
My one genuine gripe is that twenty minutes is nowhere near enough. I wanted more, not out of entertainment hunger but out of a feeling that these lives, these real lives, deserve a fuller telling. It almost feels like a trailer for a feature that deserves to exist. And I mean that as a compliment as much as a criticism. The fact that I was desperate for it to continue is a sign of just how good it is. It reminded me of how I felt watching Lost Boy in Juba (2017), another film rooted in African conflict that leaves you wishing the world paid more attention to these stories.
Short films get overlooked constantly. They sit on Vimeo, they screen at festivals, and then they disappear for most people. This one is available to watch right now and I'd urge you to spend twenty minutes with it. You'll be glad you did, even if glad isn't quite the right word. Moved. Unsettled. Reminded of something important. That's probably closer.
Four and a half stars. The best short film I've seen on my A-Z World Movie Tour so far, and honestly one of the most affecting films, short or feature length, that I've come across in a long time.
Rating: ★★★★½ | Year: 2017 | Watched: 2025-05-31
Where to watch
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Physical: Amazon US
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