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Year of Production 2024

Family Approach, The

English title: Family Approach, The
Original title: Im Prinzip Familie
German title: Im Prinzip Familie
Germany, 2024

Director: Abma, Daniel
Production company: Bandenfilm, Camino Filmverleih GmbH
Co-producers: RBB, Arte
Age recommendation: 10 years and up
Length: 90 min.
Film genre: Documentary

Synopsis:
When parents can no longer fulfil their duty of care, the children’s world often falls apart. Nothing stays as it was. Suddenly it is no longer mum or dad who are in charge but the youth welfare system. Daniel Abma followed a youth housing group in a rural area over several years, showing professional educators who want to give five boys between the ages of seven and fourteen what they need most urgently, day by day: security, orientation, a home.
The documentary focus is not on the children but on those who take the parents’ place. They sometimes remind us of Don Quixote tilting at the windmills, for there is a diffusion of responsibility between school, youth welfare services, and absent mothers and fathers. Words fail when adults do not keep appointments, when those in charge capitulate in the face of racist bullying and propose some “time out” – for the bullied boy – in a psychiatric facility. It would be easy to denounce these mechanisms, but that is not the point Daniel Abma wants to make. His observation, both emphatic and reserved, looks questioningly into the gaps in the system – with those who are in danger of falling through and those who try to fill them with affection. He makes us suspect that the answer is not to close all the system’s gaps. It is people who are there for other people and take responsibility.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann (Dok Leipzig)

Festivals:
Vision du Reel IFF Nyon 2024, Dok Leipzig IFF 2024 (awarded), Cottbus IFF 2024, Thessaloniki Doc IFF 2025, Golden Sparrow CFF Erfurt/Gera 2025 (awarded)

Website: www.imprinzipfamilie.de

World sales address/es:
Bandenfilm

Sold to:
Camino (DE)