Currently Crowdfunding: ‘What We’re Meant For’
Today the spotlight lands on Gabriel Bruskoff’s 2D animated short What We’re Meant For, a project that blends drama, fantasy, and thriller beats while telling a story about grief, family, and mental health.
The story centers on thirteen-year-old Jamie and her father in the months after her mother’s death. Jamie feels everything at full volume; her father retreats behind silence. Their mutual withdrawal pushes them further apart at the exact moment they need each other most.
The breaking point arrives when Jamie loses her horse, her closest companion. The crisis forces both father and daughter to face the gap between them and decide whether they will reach across it or let their separate pain harden into something permanent.
Bruskoff folds fantasy and thriller elements into the narrative when Jamie, starved for connection, slips deeper into her own mind in search of the people who once cared for her. The film treats loss and mental health with honesty, yet it also insists the world remains worth living in even when it falls short of ideal.
The team chose this project because the themes mirror their own lives. Whether the experience was losing someone, navigating fractured family dynamics, or managing mental health, each member arrived with firsthand knowledge of the territory.
As filmmakers they set out to underscore three clear ideas: loss belongs to life and the best response is to value the time that remains; family and loved ones make that possible through steady love and support; and life itself stays worth living even when it refuses to be perfect.
Campaign Outcome and Funding Success
The Kickstarter campaign closed successfully, raising $32,301 from 253 backers. The final update posted on January 30, 2026, confirming the project had the resources to move into production.
Recent Credits and Ongoing Work
Bruskoff served as cinematographer on the 2025 short Nani. He is now in pre-production on another animated dramatic short and developing a feature-length comedy about the end of the world seen through coming-of-age eyes.
Channel Growth and Audience Reach
His YouTube channel Movies Under The Surface has grown to more than 20,000 subscribers and accumulated over 1.2 million total views, expanding the platform’s reach since the original campaign.
Updated Personal Milestones
Bruskoff’s travel log now lists 37 countries and 32 U.S. states, reflecting continued movement after the year-long world trip he took in 2016–2017.
Bruskoff has written and directed more than a dozen short films that screened at festivals in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlantic City. He created Movies Under The Surface and has produced and directed videos for Hinduism Today, Career Dreams, and Second Sight Medical Products. He has also assistant-directed projects for Facebook, T-Mobile, and several independent features. Outside filmmaking he holds an engineering degree he rarely uses and continues to travel whenever the schedule allows.
The completed campaign and fresh credits show how a personal story about grief and connection found both funding and forward motion. With production now underway, What We’re Meant For moves from crowdfunding page to finished frames, carrying the same insistence that life, even imperfect, remains worth the effort.
