An animator spends all night working on a short cartoon about a small cat who wakes in the
pandemic and says ‘Everything is Going to be Okay”. The house is empty and dark, as are the settings for many horror films as we recognize that ultimate fear is that, in our place of safety, something is out to get us. As the animator descends into madness in Youssef Gouda’s Everything is Going to be Okay, the cartoon within the film, itself becomes darker and darker. This live action / animation Hybrid manages to surprise, delight and scare.
Film Critic, Ronald Falzone writes “Everything is Going to Be O.K. by Youssef Gouda begins with a deception. What at first appears to be a crudely drawn animated fairy tale soon reveals itself to be a sardonic examination of the mental toll of our enforced isolation during the Great Pandemic of 2020-21. Gouda utilizes several cinematic modes – animation, video, b/w, color, etc. – to create a fragmented mosaic that seeks to expose our shared fears of loss of control and, ultimately, of self that have underpinned our lives during this period. What is revealed beyond the story he wants to tell is Gouda’s fascination with cinematic devices and his willing employment of these in service to his tale. Everything is Going to Be O.K. manages the very difficult trick of being funny, oddly charming and more than a little frightening”
