City of Shadows

This story is about time. Not the time measured by clocks or marked on calendars, but inner, human time—the kind we feel. The time needed for a glance, a friendship, a thought, a game. The kind that is increasingly in short supply. Have you noticed how often we say, “I don’t have time”? How much less we talk, play, or simply spend time together? How more and more people are becoming tired, irritable, sad—as if something were quietly, but constantly, taking something from them?

City of Shadows is a world much like our own. People here are always hurrying, planning and saving—until one day they no longer understand what it is all for. The invisible Grey Gentlemen, masters of saving, secretly steal time and, along with it, the joy of living. People no longer talk to one another, children no longer play, and no one notices the colours slowly fading.

Then Momo appears. She is not a hero in the traditional sense. She has no superpowers; she simply knows how to listen. And when the world begins to sink into shadow, she alone dares to set off on a magical journey in search of time.

This visually poetic story is about how important it is to stop, listen and know how to simply be. Perhaps time is not a treasure to be saved, but a gift worth sharing?

The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.