Childhood

Jordan, nowadays. After the sudden death of her husband, Nawal, 30s, has to fight for her part of inheritance in order to save her daughter and home in a society where having a son would be a game changer. More

A first-grade primary school teacher in a poor suburb of Tehran assigns a letter to each student and asks them to bring items starting with an assigned letter, related to their fathers' jobs. Mehdi's father is a fruit seller and he must bring 30 apples («Seeb» in Farsi) to class on the «S» Day. However, an unfortunate event immerses the family in a crisis. Saeed, Mehdi's older brother, should find a way to overcome this challenge and help Mehdi for «the apple day». More

Within the large halls of a big house by the sea, Sara and her nanny Yarisa have forged a friendship so intense that it seems like a fantasy. While Sara finds in Yarisa the affectionate mother she never had, Yarisa finds in Sara not only affection, but also the illusion of a more comfortable life, away from the financial dramas of her background. That fantasy becomes affected, though not destroyed, when Yarisa finds herself forced to deal with her past and her biological daughter Mallory. But a rainy night and a muddy road invaded by goats will be enough for chaos to ensue. More

Young brothers Max and Leo dream of going to Disneyland, but having just emigrated from Mexico to the USA they first have to settle in their new homeland. And they have to stick to the seven rules their mother has set down for them. More

Struggling with his profession as a teacher, Ugyen is sent to Lunana in northern Bhutan for his final year of training. With a warm welcome, the local children try to win him over but they do not have much time.BONUS5 questions pour Pawo Choyning Dorji (Braunschweig Festival) More

Twelve-year-old Binti dreams of becoming a famous vlogger like her idol Tatyana. But when the police raid her home, and try to deport her and her dad, they are forced to flee. Binti meets Elias and the two become friends. While Binti helps Elias to vlog about his 'save-the-okapi-club', she hatches the perfect plan: her dad has to marry Elias’s mom, so they can stay in Belgium. More

FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. More

Jo, a witty 9-year old terminally ill girl is taken back to her rural village to live out the rest of her short life. Her only comfort during these dull times are her dreams of being a Superhero, which prove to be something her rebellious teenage sister Mwix, overprotective mother Kathryn and the entire village of Maweni think they can fulfill. BONUS to watch Deutsche Welle News Making Of More

LIYANA is a story born in the imaginations of five orphaned children in the Kingdom of Swaziland. The film follows the children, Zweli, Sibusiso, Phumlani, Mkhuleko, and Nomcebo, as they collaborate to tell the original tale of Liyana, a fictional character whose early life bears remarkable similarities to their own. The world that the children imagine for Liyana is brought to life in an innovative style of animated artwork. This hybrid film weaves documentary scenes together with the animated adventure. More

In rural Afghanistan, people believe in the stories they invent to tell each other, explaining the mysteries of the world, they don’t understand. Shepherd children own the mountains. Even though there are no grown ups around, they know the rules very well; the main one is that boys and girls are not allowed to be together, they have to be separated. The boys practice with their slings to fight the wolves should they attack the flock. The girls smoke dried branches of wheat secretly and play wedding, dreaming of getting a husband soon. More

When his father dies, anti-regime partisan Chandra must travel to his remote mountain village after nearly a decade away. Little Pooja is anxiously awaiting the man she thinks is her father, but she’s confused when Chandra arrives with Badri, a young street orphan rumoured to be his son. Chandra must face his brother Suraj, who was on the opposing side during the Nepalese civil war. The two brothers cannot put aside political feelings while carrying their father's body down the steep mountain path to the river for cremation. More

Lamb is a drama about 9 year-old Ephraim and his constant companion sheep, Chuni, in the vast volcanic canyon land of Ethiopia. Ephraim’s affection for Chuni deepened after he lost his mother to famine the year before. Consequently, his beloved father sends him and Chuni faraway from their drought-stricken homeland to live with his distant relatives in a greener part of the country. Ephraim soon finds himself to be a homesick outcast who is always getting into trouble. More

A nomadic family lives with their horses in the intoxicating nature of Kyrgyzstan. Schaiyr's husband drowned in the nearby river years ago. A new love is on the horizon as meteorologist Jermek sets up his measuring station next to Schaiyr's home. Told in the gentle rhythm of the nomadic life, director Mirlan Abdykalykow takes us on a journey through time into the easily vulnerable heart of a family and into the dreamlike nature. More

In the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I, a young Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming of age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination.In 1916, in the Hejaz Province of the Ottoman Empire, the young Bedouin Theeb (Jacir Eid) is learning from his elder brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh) the skills for everyday survival in their harsh environment. More

Char is an island in the river that forms the border between India and Bangladesh. It is there that a boy named Rubel and his family live, along with others who lost their homes. The island emerged like a gift that the river gave to the people as a refuge after it tore away their native village when the water levels rose. But this gift is built on sand, a fleeting environmental reaction after the dam upstream was put into operation. Out of necessity, the people – much like the birds – have made use of this new terrain and built up a contraband business. More

Anina Yatay Salas is a pensive redhead who really does not like hername. Each part is a palindrome, which means it reads the same bothforwards and backwards. Her schoolmates are always teasing herabout this, especially Anina’s arch-enemy Yisel. When these two getinto a playground fight one day they are sent to the school head whodisciplines them with a nerve-racking punishment: they are both givena sealed black envelope which they are not allowed to open foran entire week. Haunted by nightmares, the days drag by endlesslyfor Anina. More

Rahima (23) and Nedim (14) are orphans of the Bosnian war. They live in Sarajevo, a transitional society that has lost its moral compass, including in the way it treats children of the people who were killed fighting for the freedom of their city. After crime-prone adolescent years, Rahima has found comfort in Islam and she hopes her brother will follow in her footsteps. Their life of bare survival becomes even more difficult after Nedim gets into a fistfight with the son of a local strongman and breaks his expensive mobile phone. More

Jordan, 1967. The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is underway as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine. Having been separated from his father in the chaos of war, Tarek, 11, and his mother Ghaydaa, are amongst this latest wave of refugees. Placed in “temporary” refugee camps made up of tents and prefab houses until they would be able to return, they wait, like the generation before them who arrived in 1948. More

En el Nombre de la Hija tells the story of a nine-year old girl whose name is in dispute. Manuela has been named alter her socialist-atheist father, but her catholic-conservative grandmother insists she should carry the name the first daughters of the family have carried for generations: Dolores. The story takes place in a Valley in the Ecuadorian Andes, during the summer of 1976. Manuela and her little brother, Camilo, are spending vacations with their cousins and grandparents at the family's farmhouse. More

Six-year-old Yusuf has just begun attending primary school where he is learning how to read and write. His father, Yakup, is a beekeeper. He goes about his trade deep inside the woods where he hangs up his bee hives in the treetops of the highest trees. The mountain forest is a place of deep mystery to Yusuf and he derives great pleasure from accompanying his father there. One morning Yusuf tells his father about a dream he had the night before. Yakup turns on him curtly telling him never to share his dreams with others. The same day, Yusuf is asked to read out a text in front of the class. More

War is imminent, but pregnant Nour refuses to admit it. Her husband, more rational, persuades her to leave. Convinced they will be able to return shortly, they bring with them only the bare necessities. Little do they know that they are leaving behind the fond memories of a paradise lost. The dramatic reconstruction in a minimalist approach of a key day in the life of a couple who has since emigrated. More

Twelve-year-old Tedo lives with his young mother in Keto in an isolated hut on the outskirts of Tiflis. Tedo and Keto are refugees from Abchasia. The civil war has claimed everything they ever owned, including Tedo’s and Keto’s hopes for a bright future as an intact family unit. Tedo was just four years of age when they were obliged to flee from Abchasia. At the time, they had to leave behind Tedo’s father – his weak heart made it impossible for him to take on such a strenuous journey. More

At early age children begin to work in the Mexican countryside. The Inheritors is a portrait of theirs lives and their daily struggle for survival. These children work farming, sculpting and painting alebrijes, shepherding, making bricks, weaving cloth, looking after their little siblings, collecting water, harvesting tomato, chili, maize, and laboring in a myriad of other activities. They have inherited tools and techniques from their ancestors, but they have also inherited their day-by-day hardship. Generations pass and child workers remain captive in a cycle of inherited poverty. More

Madeinusa is a girl aged 14 who lives in an isolated village in the Cordillera Blanca Mountain range of Peru. This strange place is characterized by its religious fervor. From Good Friday at three o'clock in the afternoon (the time of day when Christ died on the cross) to Easter Sunday, the whole village can do whatever it feels like. During the two holy days sin does not exist: God is dead and can't see what is happening. Everything is accepted and allowed, without remorse. More

The time is 1702. A young samurai, Aoki Sozaemon (Okada Junichi) has left his countryside hometown, and is now living in Edo (now Tokyo), in search of Kanazawa Jubei (Asano Tadanobu), the man who killed his father. He is living in a dilapidated tenement house, in the poor quarters of the city of Edo. His neighbors in the so-called "row houses" are all good, solid folk who can never even hope to rise out of the squalor of their surroundings. More

After a forty-year civil war, the radio in Chad announces that the government has decided to grant amnesty to all war criminals. Outraged by the news, Gumar Abatcha orders his grandson Atim (Ali Bacha Barkai), a 16-year-old youth, to trace the man who killed his father and to execute him. Atim obeys him and, armed with his father's own gun, he goes in search of Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro), the man who made him an orphan before he was born. It does not take long before he finds him. Nassara is running a bakery. More

The recent Rumanian cinema delights the screenland The current Rumanian cinema is very exciting, which could also be seen at the Festival in Cannes: In 2006, the gentle feature film "Comment j'ai fêté la fin du monde" (Cum mi-am petrecut sfârsiful lumil) by Catalin Mitulescu was honoured with the award "Un certain regard" for the actress. A brilliant Dorotheea Petre represents the young woman Eva at the time, when the Iron Curtain disintegrated. More

The gripping story of two Kurdish soldiers, Asad and Rashid, who celebrate with their comrades the downfall of Saddam on 9th April 2003 before being ordered to take food supplies to another remote part of the country. As they hit the road, they come across a lost 7-year-old arab boy called Saddam crying at the side of a highway. They decide to save him and protect him until they find his parents. In the process one of them gets killed. More

Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers and have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, charging her oldest boy to look after the others. And so begins the children's odyssey, a journey nobody knows. Though engulfed by the cruel fate of abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules. More

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The Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang shows in his film Yi Yi - A One and a Two the life of a family in modern Taipei. NJ is a man in his mid-forties. He is married, a father of two children and successful in his job - still he is no longer happy with himself and with his life. While NJ starts seing his old flame again his mother-in-law is in a coma. It is NJ's eight year old son who guides us through everyday life of the family and who asks critical questions and surprises the spectators with his experiments in the water. More

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This May in the town seems to be warmer and gloomier than the previous years. Still, everyone seems to be happy despite their small worries and lives closed for any surprises. However, this happiness is a little disturbed by the arrival of Muzaffer who has made up his mind to shoot a film in this town where he had passed his childhood. "Clouds of May" tells the story of Muzaffer, who returns to his native town to make a movie. His father, Emin, is bent on saving the small forest he cultivates on his property from confiscation by the authorities. More

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Beshkempir (The Adopted Son) takes its title from the name of the boy whose story it tells. His life is sunny and carefree, spent in childhood games, until the day he hears terrible news from his playmates: he is not his parents’ biological child. Overnight, his best friend becomes his rival and the young girl of his dreams starts going bicycling with somebody else. His pleasant and peaceful existence is over: if his parents are not his own, Beshkempir feels he has lost his whole identity. He tries to gradually overcome the problems that arise from this new situation. More

Eternity And A Day traces the final days of Alexandre (Bruno Ganz), a celebrated Greek writer as he prepares to leave his seaside home forever. While packing, he finds a letter from his long-dead wife, Anna (Isabelle Renauld), who wrote about an enchanted summer day they spent thirty years ago. From that point, Alexandre embarks on a mystical journey through his past and present. Realizing that after spending his entire life chasing after the words of poems and novels, Alexandre wants one final chance to capture the lost precious moments of true happiness, even if only for one day. More

The seven young Cambodian actresses who were chosen to play the main parts of The Rice People were all born during the Khmer Rouge genocide between 1975 and 1979 or under the subsequent occupation. When they are not on the set, they are all practicing the art of choreography between the walls of the former royal palace of Phnom Penh. More

Les Gens de la rizière tells the story of Yong Poeuw, his wife Yim Om and their seven daughters. The land is scarce, the family members are many, the children are growing up, the balance has become fragile. Yong Poeuw and Yim Om suspect that a rupture is coming. More

The news that his first wife was pregnant with a child when they separated some ten years ago comes to official photographer Cao Depai (Li Xuejian) like a thunderbolt out of the blue. Now she is dead, and the son that he never knew was found wandering the streets. He is afraid to tell his new wife about this extra mouth to feed, and at first he attempts to house the lad at his darkroom. However, the boy sneaks visits to his father's current home frequently in order to play with his step-siblings, and eventually they are discovered together. More

Dat and his sister live with their eternally drunk father in a small village in the Vietnamese mountains. One day a travelling circus appears. Dat makes friends with the girl from the circus: He hopes to get behind the trick with which the jugglers suddenly conjure up rice for everyone from an empty basket. Could Dat and his sister, could all the starving people from now on have enough to eat through this incredible miracle? Dat is bitterly disappointed: everything was just dizziness and lazy magic. More

Flora Gomes tells a tragicomic love story in a colourful, poignant and loving way. Young Yonta is growing up in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, a country that won independence less than 20 years ago. All day long, she thinks of no one else but Vicente, a friend of her parents and a former freedom fighter. Vicente, however, has no interest in Yonta whatsoever. And she, in turn, pays no attention whatsoever to Zé, a young man who worships her. More

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Mohamed Malas was born in 1945 in Syria's Kuneitra, not far from the border with present-day Israel, which destroyed the important Kuneitra traffic junction in the Six-Day War. Now Malas flashes back to the time between 1936 and 1967. In Al Leil he depicts the childhood of a boy who, as an adult, reconstructs the footsteps of his father, the times of constant absence. One day he hadn't appeared at all after having fought for democracy for years and hardly found time for his family, for his private life. The boy grew up with his mother. More

Ten year old Bila and his cousin Nopoko live happily in their Sahelian village. Bila is taken with an elderly woman, Sana, whom he calls «Yaaba», although the rest of the village treats her as a witch. One day, Nopoko falls ill with tetanus; her condition worsens. Nobody in the village, not even the healer, can help her – except, perhaps, Sana. More

LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST is a film about the void. It is a film about despair, about the failure of contemporary society. The prodigal father who figures in almost every Angelopoulos film here has evaporated into his mythical essence - leaving his children to become the wanderers in search of him. In the «chaos», two children appear, little Alexandros and his older sister Voula. In order to exorcise their loneliness, they invent a secret universe for themselves, inhabited by their dreams. More

In this epic drama drawing on Bambara culture, which echoes mythic legends in an invented tale, a hero undergoes ordeals that allow him to renovate a decaying society. A young man must penetrate the secrets of the Komo cult (a real caste of specialist knowledge among the Bambara), whose members have abused their spiritual powers. Niamankoro suffers his father's wrath as he travels throughout the Bambara empire and Dogon and Peul societies. More

Four Sicilian episodes after the 'Novelle per un anno', in which Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello wrote down earthy and extraordinary stories that his governess once told him. The Vienna Film Museum writes: "What remains incessantly perceptible in these tragic, lyrical and grotesque episodes about painful mothers, moon-addicted farmers, rebellious shepherds, fools and shawls is the powerful, sweeping lust for narration, the infatuation with the glare of day and night, the passion for sensuous, pasty pictures and the love for the country and its creatures. More

The movie tells a melancholic story of a little girl who is living in a city in the north. She is fascinated by the secrets of the south which seem to be hidden in the personality of her father. More

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The street urchin Pixote flees the inhumane conditions at a correction facility and returns to life on the streets. He seeks a mother-figure in the aging prostitute Sueli. More

In the deep Sardinia of the 1940s, at the age of five, little Gavino is forced to drop out of school after only two months because he now has to help his father keep the animals. He thus grows up in isolation, far from human society. It is thanks to military service at the age of 21 that he can escape his father's grip. He learns to read, which is for him a revelation (he will become a linguist), and when he leaves the army, he rejects the report of quasi-slavery imposed by his father. More

Alyosha, a 40-year-old filmmaker, falls seriously ill. He remembers his past and collects the memories that marked his life: the house of his childhood, his mother waiting for the improbable return of her husband, the poems of his father, his wife and his son that he has not seen for a long time, the tumult of the Second World War... More

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The background of Andrei Tarkowski's first feature film is the Second World War, with the 12-year-old boy Iwan at the centre. As part of the official programme of films, it is still astonishing today how the Russian managed to shoot a film that stood across the system and showed the war from the perspective of a boy. Iwan seems totally hardened after losing his family and escaping a camp, he sees little prospects and quite simply wants to avenge the death of his loved ones. Tarkowski shows his masterly skills in cinematography in this early oeuvre. More

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Yoshii, his wife and their two sons, Ryoichi and Keiji, move into a Tokyo suburb. The head of Yoshii’s department lives nearby. When he invites Yoshii’s family and all the children in the neighbourhood to a film show at his house, Ryoichi and Keiji are thrilled to discover their father on the screen. But when he starts pulling all sorts of faces to please his boss and thereby – in the eyes of his sons – embarrasses himself in front of everyone, the two boys’ world is in tatters. Upon returning home, they demand an explanation for his undignified behaviour. More