European Children's
Film Association
Association Européenne du Cinéma
pour l'Enfance et la Jeunesse
In our world things often reach a point where all you want to do is turn your head and look away. But, fortunately, plenty of short films for children actually do deal with those issues. The current trend is: take a closer look where it hurts, and where the protagonists never give up. One example is Nils Hedinger’s KUAP, about a tadpole who somehow misses out on becoming a frog and is left behind.
“With a drop of nostalgia – like summer when it’s almost over”Summer, 1989. Sunlight softly falls in delicate rays over the village where city girls Paula and Laura come to spend their summer holidays. Four girls in flowery skirts, unattended, playfully imitating the life of adults, while in the background the signs of a national uproar against the Russian occupier can no longer be denied. At the Filem’on festival in Brussels, director Madara Dislere can’t emphasise enough how deeply the film is based on her own childhood experiences. “It’s about a young girl’s farewell to the life she had so far, and the start of a new era.”
“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”