Candybox follows Tarik, a young Palistinean journalist who lands a long-awaited opportunity to pitch and report for a major newspaper during a surge of pro-Palestinian protests. Eager to contribute honest reporting, Tarik is quickly pushed into the field, where he witnesses, and suffers, real violence at the hands of instigators targeting protesters.

When Tarik submits his account, his editor systematically strips the story of its truth, removing any language that assigns blame or acknowledges harm. With each editorial cut, Tarik’s physical injuries mysteriously disappear, transforming his body into a metaphor for journalistic erasure. As the narrative is sanitized, the violence he endured is rewritten out of existence.

Trapped between professional ambition and moral responsibility, Tarik confronts the power structures that control whose pain is acknowledged and whose is dismissed. Candybox is an examination of media manipulation, racialized narratives, and the cost of telling the truth in institutions that profit from silencing it.