Roots is J. Juškaitis’s debut short film — an animated portrait of the first generation born into Lithuanian independence, growing up in a landscape that shaped them before they could question it.

Set in Soviet-era residential neighborhoods of identical concrete blocks and gray courtyards, the film follows teenagers caught in a feeling many struggle to name: the strange mix of belonging and unease that comes from calling a gray place home. These streets are familiar, even comforting, yet there is also a growing awareness — a slow recognition of the weight that sameness carries.

Hair becomes the film’s quiet metaphor for this tension: a personal choice carved out of an inherited world, a small but deliberate act of becoming.

Ink animation and photo-video collage move alongside real voices, translating emotion into image: familiar walls rendered strange, bodies made vivid against muted backgrounds. Roots sits at the edge of documentary and animation, asking how identity grows in soil you did not choose.