A Kind of Childhood (2002)

Everybody knew

In 2023, the Ombudsman presented a report on sexual abuse in the Church in Spain. Victims' accounts reached the European Parliament. Among them were the abuse suffered by two brothers at the boarding school where they attended as children.

Let the Child Be the Guide

As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.

The Echo

In the remote village of El Echo that exists outside of time, the children care for the sheep and their elders. While the frost and drought punish the land, they learn to understand death, illness and love with each act, word and silence of their parents. A story about the echo of what clings to the soul, about the certainty of shelter provided by those around us, about rebellion and vertigo in the face of life. About growing up.

Norte

Plot unavailable

What You’ll Remember

Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Welcome Home Freckles

After four years away, Huiju returns home to South Korea. Exchanges with her loved ones are awkward and clumsy. Huiju turns once again to her familiar rituals: pruning the trees, preparing a sauce, tying a braid.

Little Girl

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

things that won't die

After finding some videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself has left on the Internet. A search that looks into all that things that won't never die and that, especially, thinks about the way we look at ourselves.

And Yet We're Not Super Heroes

It takes time to grow up. And sometimes you even wonder if it’s really worth it… Then the children move slowly, at their own pace, the time to tame the world that awaits them. On the way, they ask questions and invent answers using their overflowing imagination.

Those, revealed on the walls, in a touch

A short documentary on a grandson returning home to visit his aging grandmother who was crying to see him on the phone.

The Devil's Miner

'The Devil's Miner' tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

Bangla Surf Girls

Three working-class teenage girls in a port city in Bangladesh escape daily hardships and stifling family lives by riding waves on their surfboards and grabbing hold of the fleeting and thrilling sense of freedom that brings.

China Blue

"China Blue" is an engrossing documentary that tells the story of 3 teenage girls who leave their rural homes in China to come work for a factory that makes blue jeans.

Les enfants de Vercheny

Plot unavailable

To the Sea

Before leaving for Rome with his mother, five year old Natan is taken by his father, Jorge, on an epic journey to the pristine Chinchorro reef off the coast of Mexico. As they fish, swim, and sail the turquoise waters of the open sea, Natan discovers the beauty of his Mayan heritage and learns to live in harmony with life above and below the surface, as the bond between father and son grows stronger before their inevitable farewell.

I Am Trying to Remember

Pegah talks about Gholam, a man who’s not like her father, mother, uncles, or aunts, even though he’s always present at family gatherings. Gholam films these everyday scenes with his own camera. At the time, Pegah can’t imagine what the purpose of these films might be, but she’s happy to pose before the lens of this family friend, who she’s certainly very fond of.

Children of the Wind

Three short films about abandoned children, left to the omnipotence of silence, of the eye and of the hand but also of abysmal loneliness

The Concert for Bangladesh

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

Was Tun

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Sherwood Park

Reclaiming what was once stolen from him, a man journeys back to the place of his childhood nearly 80 years after his world came crashing down.

'Independence 2.0'

This desktop documentary portrays the student movement in July and August 2024, the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, and its aftermath.

Blade Rollers

Honour West and Joan Camuglia-May share their experiences in this upbeat roller-skating documentary.

I Lit the Fire!

The plot of the movie brings two people together - an immigrant filmmaker from Belarus and a 10 years old girl from the village in the south of Kyrgyzstan.

Whores' Glory

In Bangkok, Thailand, women punch a clock and wait for clients in a brightly lit glass box; in the red-light district of Faridpur, Bangladesh, a madam haggles over the price of a teenage girl; and in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, crack-addicted women pray to a deity named Lady Death.

Coffee Banana Cigarette

A short documentary about the life and love of New York surf culture following transplanted San Diego surfer, Shawlin Tucker, who forced found a way to bring his passion with him when a college acceptance from New York University summons him to the big apple.