Youth

Zaffan (12) struggles with puberty, discovering a terrifying secret about her physical self. Her failed attempts to conceal the inevitable lead her friends to find out who she really is, and they attack her. As Zaffan is further provoked by her own community, she soon learns that embracing her true self is the only answer to her freedom. More

An allegorical tale of female emancipation set amidst the Syrian conflict in Damascus, about a family who decides to stay behind in the besieged area. When a shell rips a giant hole in the roof of the building where 14-year-old Zeina and her family live, they are suddenly exposed to the outside world. One day a young boy living nearby lowers a rope through the opening in the family’s roof and Zeina discovers her first taste of freedom. More

As soon as school is over, Sasha’s otherwise relaxed and complicit mother pressures him to enroll at the university. Sasha, however, lives in the moment. Plus he currently wants to hone his graffiti skills with his friend Max. And maybe get to know his father. But then, he meets the dazzling Zhenya. Carried by the light and the ease of the summer, they fathom their feelings, talents and fears together. In her sensitive debut, Julia Trofimova tells of young people in today’s Russia who cannot possibly please everyone. More

Yuni is a teenage girl — smart with big dreams of attending university. When two men she barely knows ask to marry her, she rejects their proposals, sparking gossip about a myth that a woman who rejects three proposals will never marry. The pressure is building when a third man asks for her hand, and Yuni must choose between the myth of a final chance at marriage, or her dream of future happiness. BONUS:Interview with Kamila Andini, Toronto Filmfestival More

Sudan, province of Aljazira, nowadays - When Muzamil was born, a prophecy by the holy man of the village predicts that he will die when he is 20 years old. Muzamil’s father cannot stand the doom and travels away from home. Sakina, as a single mother, raises her son with over protection. One day, Muzamil turns 19. More

Patagrande, Rambo, Leidi, Sueca, Pitufo, Lobo, Perro and Bum Bum. Eight stray teenagers, each bearing a code name, form a paramilitary squad on a remote hilltop. They are instinctively drawn towards hedonism and ferocity. A messenger delivers instructions from the Organisation: they are to look after a dairy cow called Shakira and an abducted woman from the USA known as Doctora. But their carefree time comes to an end when death pays them a visit and their position is compromised, forcing them to relocate deeper into the jungle. More

“Where do our tears come from? Some say they are the sap of our suffering and our broken hearts. Others say our tears are the waters of innocence, to cleanse the land of a Thousand and One Hills.”Rwanda, 1973: high up in the mountains, at the source of the Nile, a black statue of the Virgin Mary watches over a Catholic boarding school for girls. Here, during days filled with classes, mass and practical work, the daughters of politicians, officers and businessmen are educated to one day become productive members of the country’s elite. More

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition. More

A young girl informs her father she’s been kidnapped and asks him to bring the ransom money. Panicked, her father and brothers go to Tehran to look for her. They are unaware, however, that the girl has in fact  eloped with her boyfriend and now spends her time in the company of a band of street musicians. Following the arrest of the band leader and full of the love for her boyfriend, the young girl descends an uncertain path. More

Eleven-year-old Chala (Armando Valdés Freire) lives with his addict mother Sonia (Yuliet Cruz). In order to provide for the two of them, he raises carrier pigeons and trains fighting dogs with a man who may or may not be his biological father. School provides a stabilizing force in Chala's life, thanks to his close relationship with his spirited sixty-something teacher, Carmela (Alina Rodríguez). More

A group of students decides to camp on a desolate Caspian region which runs a competition of kite flying during the winter solstice. Not far from the camp, live Babak and Saeed, two grim cooks. Armed with sharp knives, they roam the forest in search of meat to serve the decrepit restaurant they run nearby. More

Mired in the nervous desperation of Havana, Raul dreams of escaping to Miami. When accused of assault, his only option is to flee Cuba. He begs his best friend, Elio, to abandon everything and help him reach the forbidden world 90 miles across the ocean. Elio’s commitment is tested when he is torn between protecting his twin sister and his own desire to get out. 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

The young Kenyan Mwas has a dream: to tread the boards as an actor. In order to realise this dream, he leaves his village and heads for Nairobi, but is overwhelmed by the loud and wild city. One day, he is robbed and left completely helpless on the streets. Placed in this existential predicament, Mwas slowly slips into Nairobi’s underworld. What begins with petty scams and minor drug deals, ends with more serious crimes. When corrupt police begin to threaten him, he has to decide between fast money and his dream. More

As far as their film school final project is concerned, these three studentshave only one goal in mind – international fame, includingOscars and festival prizes. They know what foreign audiences expectfrom Philippine cinema – prostitution, abuse, rubbish tips and slums –and apply this magic formula to develop the ultimate in misery porn.A mother, battered by life, sells her child to a sex tourist; a story asharsh and realistic as it is rousingly emotional. More

Does love at first sight exist? This may certainly be the case, but sometimes you need time to be sure of this love. This film describes such a story about getting to know somebody and falling in love as a teenager, and about meeting again many years later. It begins in the 70s, in the summer in a small town by the river. Bruno and Lalo are teenagers and good friends. They hang around together in the heat, until one rainy day Lisa turns up, a beautiful young woman who capriciously and quick-wittedly turns the heads of both boys – and then decides on one of them. More

‘María, someday somebody will notice you and realise how special you are …’ these are the words that María notes down in her diary. She also writes herself passionate love letters. But nobody notices how desperate she is. How could they? She is such an unassuming girl and hardly ever speaks. Not even to the boys she often allows to sleep with her, just like that. Afterwards she slaps her face hard. She can’t go on like this. More

Pretty Zehra and handsome Olgun spend most of their young lives working in a service station cafeteria near a lonely highway. Their monotonous work shifts are broken up only by sparks of naive expectations of a brighter future. Everything seems transient about their surroundings. The once important industrial area is now a faceless place of economic waste and unemployment. Most of the area's occupants have all escaped to the big city in search of opportunity. But Zehra, Olgun and their friends still remain, caught somewhere in between the past and an uncertain future. More

Three friends strive to preserve their loyalty to each other in spite of a corrupt society. These young men live in Tétouan, an impoverished Moroccan city. Soufiane, the youngest, spends his days pilfering. Allal, the oldest, is trying to gain a foothold as a drug dealer. Malik falls in love with Dounia who works as a prostitute in a night club. The three friends part to make their own way in life, but before long it looks as though their futures will founder in a maelstrom of violence, greed, jealousy and betrayal. More

Marina is 23 and lives together with her father in an industrial village on the Greek coast. She finds the human species to be peculiar, almost daunting, if it weren't for Bella, her only and very unconventional friend. Marina derives her first sexual insights from the animal documentaries of Sir David Attenborough - "Attenberg", as she calls him. Bella, on the other hand, shows Marina a completely different approach to her own sexuality. This leads to bizarre moments in Marina's approach to an unknown table football player, as well as in discussions with her sick father. More

The daily destruction of the lives of African youths who are forced by hardship into various crimes for survival, as typified in the ghettos of Nigeria. This movie represents a new tendency among the Nigerian film industry and film directors, who apart from Nollywood begun to develop a high quality cinema, accessible to a worldwide audience. Film professionals started to produce quality movies, despite the financial challenges that are obstacles to certain projects. Joseph Ugochukwu is part of the new movement. More

When her mother dies, Fausta is forced to face her fears, that she got as ababy with the milk of her mother. Fausta now sets out on a journey – a journey that will lead her out of her fear and into freedom. Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s film addresses a dark era of her country’s history. It won the Golden Bear in Berlin and was nominated for the Oscars in 2010. More

After having spent many years in Germany, Ahmad returns to his native Iran for a holiday. His friends from his student days organise a three-day breakon the Caspian Sea. One of the party, a fun-loving woman named Sepideh takes the matter in hand. Unbeknown to the rest of the group, she has alsoinvited a young woman named Elly, who is a nursery school teacher at her daughter’s kindergarten. Ahmad has just emerged from an unhappy marriage and is now divorced from his German wife. He would very much like to begin a new life with an Iranian woman. More

Birdwatchers (La terra degli uomini rossi) is a film set in Brazil, in the Matto Grosso do Sul. It depicts the breakdown of a community of Guarani-Kaiowa native Indians whilst attempting to reclaim their ancestral land from a local farmer. More

Once upon a time … is the best way to tell the incredible story of the adventures of the ‘mermaid’ Alisa in the Russian capital Moscow. There was a time when Alisa lived by the sea. Her life was nothing out of the ordinary. She dreamed of one day dancing in a ballet; she sang in a children’s choir and attended a special school, because, at the age of six, she suddenly stopped speaking. None of which would be noteworthy, were it not for the fact that Alisa possessed a remarkable gift: the ability to fulfil wishes. More

Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) is living with her 12-year-old daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic) in Grbavica, a quarter of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Saras class plans to go on a school trip. Since children of fallen warriors in the last war are not supposed to pay, Sara thinks that she is one of them (because her mother told her that her father got killed in war). Esma has two things to deal with and that is the explanation to her only child that she was raped and that Sara's father is not a fallen warrior, and she has to collect the money for her daughter to go to the school trip. 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 first in a trilogy, 'Life is All About Friends' tells the story of Unni, a young boy from a village in Kerala, and his friends Gopi, Ramu and Raju as they get together at the start of a new school year. Unni comes from an upper-caste, Nair family. His mother and grandmother, with whom he lives, enforce the strict, orthodox rules Nair's are expected to follow. It's a privileged world, but one that leaves Unni frustrated. Fortunately for him, life outside home is very different. Led by troublemaker Gopi, Unni gets up to all kinds of mischief at school. More

In the capital of Burkina Faso, a band of young people tries to survive and thrive vis-a-vis the thousand and one temptations. Adventures of a band of youngsters, living in a stripped district of Ouagadougou, who seek hopes. The easy way and ingeniousness compensate for the money which often is lacking. Sadness is banished of a resolutely optimistic way of life. Plunders and odd jobs constitute the daily newspaper of this struggle for life. The ones will succeed modestly, the others will fail more or less, but a great solidarity of group remains... More

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Santiago Roman (Pietro Sibille) can't buy a refrigerator. The money he earns from taxi driving won't meet the minimum monthly payment, and when it comes to lines of credit, his status as a recently discharged sailor in the Peruvian Navy adds up to exactly nothing. Worse things have happened, and there is worse yet in store, but this latest hurt is one too many, and Santiago nearly cracks up with rage. More

Jorge Furtado's debut feature, Houve Uma vez Dois Verões (Two Summers), is about a teenager who learns some hard truths about life. Teenager Chico (André Arteche) wants to lose his virginity during a family vacation. Roza (Ana Maria Mainieri) becomes his willing partner. Months later, Roza finds Chico and demands money so that she can get an abortion. Chico learns that she is lying to him, but he also realizes he still cares for her. More

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In 1979, in a China undergoing rapid changes, it is still forbidden to listen to pop music. Platform is a record young people listen to in secret. Minliang and his friends, an official theatre company, present a play in praise of Mao Zedong. With the 1980s, the theatrical troupe’s life changes: pop music, permed hair, cigarettes… This feature film follows the artistic and emotional tribulations of the young artistes over a ten-year period against a backdrop of revolutionary disappointment, a bygone past and privatisation. More

Martin Echenique is a film director from Buenos Aires who has been living for more than 20 years in Madrid, spending his time with his much younger girlfriend Alicia and his best friend, the actor Dante. He has a 19-year-old son, named according to a tradition Martin as well, but known as Hache. Hache is living with his mother in Buenos Aires. After his girlfriend leaves him, Hache has a nearly fatal drug overdose, thought by many to be an attempted suicide. Consequently Martin flies to Buenos Aires and Hache is sent back to Madrid together with his father for a while. More

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

There is an old Indian tradition according to which the parents teach their children the songs of wisdom, in order to enable them to bear their fate and their lives with more calmness. Pallavi - acted by India's most successful TV-star Kitu Gidwani - is a young, successful singer who has learnt her art with the help of her mother. She's convinced that she'd still had to learn a lot of her, whereas the mother thinks her already talented enough to keep the tradition of making music and oral deliverance alive herself. More

This movie gives us a glimpse at life in northern Taiwan. The main person is Kao, a 37-years-old man who has constantly to solve problems created by his younger brother Flat Head and his girlfriend Pretzel. As a non-stop schemer, Kao devises a plan to raise money by trading subsidized pigs to the government for cash. The ruse works, but when the temperamental Flat Head antagonizes the wrong people, the two find themselves caught up in a dangerous game of corrupt politics. More

This film, in the style of an African folk tale, is set in the forest village of Amanha Lundju, a place where the birth of children is celebrated by the planting of a tree. The trees are considered spiritual twins. But for every tree planted, the rapacious state destroys many more for firewood and lumber. The tale begins as the wanderer Dou returns to the village. He discovers that Hami, his twin brother just died for no apparent reason. According to the tradition Dou takes on his late brother's wife and children, something that displeases Saly, his betrothed. More

Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algier, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Young Boualem works six nights a week in a French bakery. On the rooftop of his apartment building the fundamentalists have installed a loudspeaker which is now broadcasting the Imam's word and the fundamentalist's hateful propaganda and therefore preventing Boualem from sleeping. Unable to stand the noise any longer, in a fit of madness, he destroys the loudspeaker and throws it into the sea. But he's quickly filled with guilt and apprehension for what he has done. 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 Prince Sid'Ali has died suddenly confronts 25-year-old Ali with her past again. During the funeral she visits the palace where she spent her childhood and adolescence and where her mother was a servant. She never knew her father - he may even have been the prince. As she wanders the deserted corridors, the images of her youth return, such as her forbidden friendship with Sarra, daughter of one of the princes, who taught Alia to love the lute. More

"I dream exactly what I live every day," a professor, bored with her mundane life, tells her therapist. But the visual evidence on screen at the start of "Madagascar" suggests that dreams are never that banal. Bicyclists crowd the street, riding to work in slow motion in a haunting, shadowy blue dawn. The 50-minute "Madagascar" has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent's search for identity into a metaphor for post-revolutionary Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. 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

A blind master wanders through a mythic landscape of a terrific beauty to play his songs and sing his ballads. His whole life he's had one hope, one dream of another world: According to a prophecy he shall be able to see, if he has broken 1000 of his banjo strings. His blind disciple, on the contrary, doesn't want to rely on one hope. He longs for a woman's love. Does sight await the saint when the 1000th string breaks? Can the disciple's strength of character overcome provincial prejudice to win the hand of his love and a place in the village? More

A young girl's academic asperation conflict with her family's struggle against poverty. Both these aspects are made all the more potent by the clear view they have of Ernest Hemingway's mansion in their home town just outside Havana. More

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

Three people live in a remote Buddhist monastery near Mount Chonan: Hyegok, the old master; Yong Nan, a young man who has left his extended family in the city to seek enlightenment, and an orphan lad Haejin, whom Hyegok has brought to the monastery to raise as a monk. The story is mostly Yong Nan's, told in flashbacks: how he came to the monastery, his brief return to the city, his vacillation between the turbulence of the world and his hope to overcome passions and escape the idea of self. More

An ageing father waits, in vain, at the bus stop for his son Raghu, a student at the University of Trivandrum, who is supposed to be coming home for the holidays. The elderly Chakyar’s eager happiness slowly turns to disappointment and then anxiety. After several days with no news of Raghu, his family learn that the police have arrested him for singing revolutionary songs at the university’s annual fête. Chakyar goes to the capital, hoping to find support from the Minister of Internal Affairs, and is soon joined by his daughter, who does not, however, share his optimism. 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

It is in a village lost at the bottom of the desert, a young teacher was named, to teach, but there is no school. Through the yant glance foudro of a girl, our teacher is aspired by another world to the suspended time where côtoient Thousand and One Nights. Coordinate all the hidden force of an underground memory. One of the most beautiful desert movies, in which storyteller and painter Nacer Khemir tells us the journey of a young teacher that arrives in a desert village. 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

Vivid social satire with overtones of Romeo and Juliet, Finye (The Wind) tackles the generation gap in post-colonial West Africa. Its heroine is the pot smoking daughter of a provincial military governor who falls in love with a fellow university student, the descendent of one of Mali's chiefs of an earlier age. Both families object to the union and to the lover's growing involvement in student strikes against the corrupt government. A mix of politics, romance and social commentary, Finye casts a critical eye on both the ancient and modern values. More

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

Makoto Shinjo, a teenager who is a little lost in search of experiences, sometimes agrees to take "little tricks" with strangers in the car. One day, she meets Kiyoshi Fujii, half student, half offender, who saves her from an overly enterprising motorist and takes money from her at the same time. Having become friends during a walk, Kiyoshi, listening only to his desire, raped her. However, Makoto decided to leave his parents to live with him. To live, they will practice the scam and blackmail to which the indelicate motorists who have been enticed by Makoto will be subjected. More

Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) is probably the most famous figure in the Japanese cinema of the 60s. He made his debut in 1959, exactly the same year as his French colleagues in the Nouvelle Vague, with his feature film Ai to Kibo no Machi (The Street of Love and Hope), only to double with Seishun Zankoku Monogatari (Naked Youth) a year later. More

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