And Yet We're Not Super Heroes is a celebration of children’s imagination and their unique, expansive perspective on the world—one that sadly tends to fade as we grow older. By giving a voice to several children who think aloud about a wide range of topics through open-ended interviews conducted by the filmmaker, the film explores, through animation, the liminal space between childhood and youth. The children are on the verge of having to leave behind the limitless world of imagination, where they can explore the edges of outer space or try to escape from the film they are trapped inside.

This film can be enjoyed with very young children—from the age of three—as well as with older children who are still attached to their early childhood. It can serve as a starting point to further explore children’s boundless imaginations by continuing the reflections sparked by the film, or to encourage older viewers to think about the transition into adolescence. One of the film’s central themes is growing up, allowing young audiences to reflect on the fears and joys associated with this transition.

The short film’s entire formal approach—the use of animation, children’s voices heard off-screen, the preservation of the filmmaker’s questions in voice-over, and the music—can also inspire many discussions and creative explorations. It provides an opportunity to explain how a story is constructed: a filmmaker interviewed children and recorded their conversations, then divided these recordings into small fragments and assembled them together. It also opens a discussion about documentary filmmaking and the freedom that animation can offer. Could we have filmed children in outer space if we had chosen to make a live-action documentary? Would the film have retained its dreamlike qualities?