Everything You Can't Contain
Release
The Beast
A 12-minute animated film about anger, gaming, and the voices in your head that won't shut up.
Aaron's got problems
Bullies at school, a game design contest deadline, and anger that won't quit. When his biggest rival humiliates him and even his mom can't help, something breaks. Literally. His unfinished gaming character, Stan, explodes into the real world as several rage-fueled versions of himself.
There's CG Stan (pure overwhelm), Paper Stan (a bodybuilder samurai stuck in a notebook), Sticky Stan (jealous, always watching), and more. Aaron's bedroom is now a battlefield, his inner voices are running wild, and he has to work out whether the Stans are going to wreck everything or help him level up.
Through tenacity, humor, and a willingness to follow the chaos all the way down, Aaron finds what's underneath his anger and learns what to do with it.
our
take
on
anger
We live in an age where a boy's anger reads as dangerous before it reads as human. An angry kid can walk into a school and destroy everyone he associates with his pain. A digital bully can follow him home and keep at it after everyone else has logged off.
Anger is a protective instinct, a signal worth listening to. The problem isn't that boys feel too much. The stories they get stop at anger.
Release the Beast is a different kind of story. It goes into anger, and beyond.
To make it, we found collaborators who listen to boys closely and compassionately. Researchers who study adolescent emotional development. Clinicians working directly with angry kids. Experts in applied anger management. And the boys themselves, who told us exactly what it feels like when nobody has the right words for what's happening inside them.
The inner resources are already there. Boys don't need to be fixed. They need stories that take their inner lives seriously, and that show them what those feelings are for.
Screen the film.
Bring Release the Beast to your school, library, community center, or festival. We'll send discussion guides and activities, and we'll join for a live Q&A if you want one.