European Children's
Film Association
Association Européenne du Cinéma
pour l'Enfance et la Jeunesse
“Fire everywhere, burning bodies and an insufferable heat – all hell was breaking loose over the city.” In OBON, the nuclear attack on Hiroshima is remembered by one of its last survivors. We spoke with German filmmaker André Hörmann at the doxs! festival.
In many ways, Vitello’s life is totally fine. He gets plenty of spaghetti with butter, he lives in a nice neighbourhood surrounded by many friends, he has a fast lawn mower and a slingshot… What more can you wish for? A dad perhaps? Since mum refuses to tell him who or where his father is, Vitello sets off on a quest in search of a dad of his own.
This year’s ECFA Award winner addresses the very youngest audience with a feature in which live actors and puppets playing alongside each other. In this wonderfully absurd adventure everything is possible, thanks to a brave girl with a boundless imagination. Director Petter Lennstrand came toBerlin to collect his prize: “I’m really happy about this award. In Sweden the expectations for UP IN THE SKY were limited, but the film will still be around for a while in the festivals.”
Shanu (9) and Bua (7) live in Mumbai. Since their father died, mum is struggling hard to make enough money. That’s why she asks her brother-in-law to find the kids a job. That’s how they come to enter the film industry, serving chai on a Bollywood film set. Continue reading “Interview with Mehran Amrohi about CHIDIYA”
Rauf, 9 years old, lives in a Kurdish mountain village in East-Turkey, where an unseen yet still unfinished war casts a dark shadow over the minds and moods of the people. Rauf quits school and becomes a carpenter’s apprentice. In the atelier, he witnesses the despair of the villagers, coming to order coffins for their fallen offspring. Continue reading “Film in Focus: Soner Caner & Baris Kaya’s RAUF”
Director Ga-eun Yoon still wonders humbly if the emotions in her deeply touching film THE WORLD OF US can be understood worldwide. They certainly can! The film does not tell a straight-forward bullying story, but speaks of an outsider, a vulnerable girl drowning in supreme loneliness. Sun, 10 years old, tries to fit in, but is ignored by everyone, always the last to be picked out for class teams. Everything seems to change the day she meets Jia… Continue reading “Interview with Ga-eun Yoon about THE WORLD OF US”
SIV SLEEPS ASTRAY, this year’s Generation opening film, takes you to a territory seldom explored: a live action film for a very young audience, situated in the twilight zone between dream and reality. When Siv sleeps over at her friend Cerisia’s for the first time, she enters an unfamiliar environment: weird parents, weird animals, weird food… By night the entire flat turns into an unreal place. Siv wants to return home as soon as possible, but dad’s phone number is safely stored in Cerisia’s pyjamas. But where is Cerisia suddenly? Siv starts wandering through the house… Continue reading “Catti Edfeldt and Lena Hanno Clyne about SIV SLEEPS ASTRAY”
17-year-old Balthazar constantly films his friends on the streets or at parties and puts his material online. When one morning two teenagers are found dead, Balthazar’s footage becomes important evidence for a police officer trying to reconstruct the crime. Will Balthazar become an indispensable element in the police investigation or will his voyeuristic habits now turn against him? In SOCIAL SUICIDE, vaguely structured as a contemporary ‘Romeo & Juliet’ story, director Bruce Webb (THE BE ALL AND END ALL) shines a light on youngsters’ abuse of power in today’s world of social media. Continue reading “Bruce Webb about SOCIAL SUICIDE”