All Light, Everywhere is a poetic look into the company Axon, the primary manufacturer of police body cameras and tasers. Although these products are not directly created to kill, as guns are, the viewer is tasked to question the true nature of these products and their connection to violence and police brutality. Tasers have long been thought of as a "safer" option to subdue citizens, although they are known to cause seizures, heart failure, arrhythmia, and long-term damage to the nervous system. However, the taser isn't the main focus of All Light, Everywhere, as the center of the film (or potentially what could be seen as the main character) is the body camera. The body camera is shown as the all-seeing eye of not only a single police officer, but the police as a whole, made even more apparent by the fact that Axon's body cameras are designed to replicate the human eye. A representative from Axon describes the company as a futuristic, and highly surveilled workplace, with aerial pathways and blacked-out rooms that mimic something like a Darth Vader’s spaceship in Star Wars. The near comical description of the company's hyper-tech concepts leads into a surreal discussion of the manufactured products themselves, leaving viewers with an anxious and uneasy picture of police technology.

Throughout the discussion of the body cameras, one can't help but to connect those on the other side of the camera to Foucault's prisoners in the panopticon, seen, yet not given agency to see. The body camera makes actions and objects appear much more dangerous than they might actually be, although Axon attests that the cameras are built to view scenarios as an officer would. As we see the body camera in use, we begin to understand they might be designed not only to replicate the physical experience of the human eye, but also the inherent bias of human sight and memory, used in this case to warrant unnecessary and violent police action.

—Emily Eddy, Guest Festival Shorts Programmer, MdFF 2021

Content Consideration: Implied violence, discussion of police brutality

After the screening there will be a panel discussion with the director of ALL LIGHT EVERYWHERE, Theo Anthony; Director of Research at Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, Lawrence Grandpre; and journalist and Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, Joanne Cavanaugh-Simpson moderated by MdFF Board Member, Camille Blake Fall.