Films

2024, 30 min
by Sarvnaz Alambeigi

An Afghan teen girl, with immigrant parents in Iran, strives to pursue her dream of becoming a professionel Muay Thai boxer despite her family's conservative mindset, enduring physical abuse, and anti-immigrant surroundings. Working day and night, she finances her Thai Boxing classes without her family's knowledge. Through this sport, she aspires not only to succeed in the ring but also to overcome life's obstacles. MAYDEGOL portrays the perseverance of Generation Z to escape their seemingly ble

2023, 86 min
by Antje Starost, Hans Helmut Grotjahn

13 years after the premiere of 7 OR WHY I EXIST we meet them again: the 7 children from all over the world. How did they find their way into becoming adults?The film shows their philosophical context to the life and future of a generation between 20 and 30. As children, they impressed and inspired us with their curiosity about "difficult" questions. As young adults, they allow us to share in their feelings and thoughts. They give us the opportunity to watch them reflecting and “in the process o

2023, 15 min
by Marie Zrenner

Two young girls are drifting in the water of a public swimming pool. The film adopts this drifting attitude as it follows them through nocturnal Montreal and their daily life. Sometimes the two speak English, sometimes Inuktitut. Kathy and Teresa come from a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada. They show each other smartphone pictures of gees and bears they killed themselves. They read about the special relationship between the Inuit and their sledge dogs, which has lost its importance tod

Finland, Germany 2023, 80 min
by Jesse Jokinen, Petri Luukkainen

A young gamer called Bona has, since a small kid, been trying to find his way in the harsh world of esports and now under a professional contract. Bona is very talented in CS:GO, but his mental side fails him every time he is on the verge of success, always resulting in second place.Bona seeks help from the world’s best esports psychologist Mia. The sessions with her set him on a path to self discovery to become a better player – and a person. Unexpectedly, another player – his old nemesis from

2023, 18 min
by Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi

A former military barracks of the Wehrmacht now serves as a refugee camp for people from Ukraine.WAKING UP IN SILENCE accompanies the children on their journey, where their own history meets that of the barracks.  A moment between past and future, war and silence, departure and arrival, which depicts a portrait of German history and its present through the eyes of its young protagonists."We would like to give the prize to a film that offers a tender glimpse into the daily rhythms of a dislocated

Germany 2022, 45 min
by Adrian Bartocha, Jan Wiese

Ruthless human traffickers smuggle Vietnamese minors via Russia, Poland and Lithuania to Great Britain. An investigation in which high-ranking investigators, witnesses, victims and perpetrators tell their tale.Crammed into vans and refrigerated trucks, on the road for months, sometimes held in abandoned warehouses or apartments. Beaten, raped, exploited, constantly in fear of their life. Lured by promises of a better future, many children and young adults are smuggled out of Vietnam into western

Germany 2022, 99 min
by Tine Kugler, Günther Kurth

Boyhood in Berlin. KALLE KOSMONAUT accompanies Kalle, his family and their East Berlin neighborhood along the Avenue of the Cosmonauts over a shooting period of 10 years.16-year-old Kalle wanders through a wasteland in Berlin. He regrets a momentous act that will change his life significantly. „I really don’t know how it all started…“ We begin with Kalle at 10 years old. Alone at night in his ‘hood. His first love. His Jugendweihe (civic initiation ceremony). Dangerous dares on the city’s distri

France, Germany, Portugal 2022, 35 min
by Filipa César, Sónia Vaz Borge

During Guinea-Bissau’s struggle for independence from Portugal in the 1960s, rebel leader Amílcar Cabral launched an ambitious education programme to fight the Portuguese colonial power. In ‘Mangrove School’, Filipa César and Sónia Vaz Borges traverse the history and impact of the movement. In the 1960s and 70s, the nomadic guerrilla schools under the mangrove trees became symbols of the people’s anti-colonial struggle, including against the colonial mentality itself. A school system set up by m

Germany 2022, 24 min
by Bernadette Hauke

Who doesn’t dream of being able to touch the clouds one day? Nele wants to go up in the skies in a hot air balloon and to take her walking-impaired mother with her. The 10-year-old has a lot to achieve – and always finds a solution. [38 DOK.fest München, Maya Reichert]On the balcony Nele is really close to the clouds, though it would be much nicer to take a balloon ride and be even closer. The plan isn’t easy to realise, as Nele’s mother has mobility problems. They need help with every activity

Germany 2022, 19 min
by Philipp Schaeffer

THE UNICORN IN SNOWPANTS SUDDENLY RAN OFF explores the clash between blind children's fantasy worlds and the reality they live in. The film draws us into the worlds of three confident children, for whom blindness is not a disability but rather a different kind of normal. Larks, telephones and short stories each play a role.With: Mia und Max Sutter, Julian Schiering, Quirin Prinz, Martha, Maike und Karl Limpbrecht

Germany 2021, 100 min
by Rikke Detlefsen, Jesper Clemmensen, Antje Behr

September 1979: The Stasi finds an abandoned tent on a campsite on the island of Rügen. Shortly afterwards, a body is caught in the net of a fishing boat off Cape Arkona. It soon becomes clear that five people have drowned while trying to escape across the Baltic Sea to Denmark: Two brothers with their wives and a small child.This four-part docu-series reconstructs the days and weeks leading up to the failed escape attempt from different perspectives and it recounts what happened in the years a

2021, 26 min
by Carmen Butta

"Boxing has not only made my body strong, but also my personality," says Lina, "I can defend myself and feel more confident." Now she dares to speak her mind. And the fact that she is the smallest in her class no longer matters to her.The twelve-year-old Lina also has to fight outside the ring - against the prejudices of neighbors and school friends. They say boxing is not a sport for girls and consider female martial arts to be "immoral and indecent". But Lina doesn't let them unsettle her. She

Germany 2021, 25 min
by Bernadette Hauke

Insects are neither cute nor beautiful, but very exciting, thinks eleven-year-old Pepe from Berlin. His favorite animals are dragonflies, which control their four wings individually and can take off faster than a jet. And the bombardier beetle, which sprays hot poison in the face of its enemies so that it is not eaten. But where do these insects still exist and how do they live? Pepe knows that many insects are going extinct in Germany because their habitat is being taken away. He wants to chang

Germany 2021, 72 min
by Qinyuan Lei

Haohao and Zhouzhou, two sisters aged five and eight, spend most of their days at an electronics market in Shenzhen. A year earlier, as new immigrants to the city, their parents opened a shop on the market’s ninth floor. The girls’ gaze turns the soulless world of electronics into a universe full of monsters and ghost stories that make life more magical.

Germany 2020, 29 min
by Marie Zrenner, Johanna Seggelke

The biography of the female elephant Bibi, who is considered to display abnormal behaviour, is marked by misfortunes: Born in Zimbabwe in 1985. Lost her mother shortly after birth. Imported by the East Berlin zoo in 1989. Deported to the Halle zoo in 2008. On the basis of an empathic reappraisal of these traumatic events the film reflects on the significance of social issues and how to deal with exclusion today: a therapy by proxy on film that will hopefully have a long-distance healing effect o

Germany 2020, 25 min
by Katja Fedulova

Maxim is 11 years old and lives in Russia. Like many other young boys and girls at his age, he is a passionate skateboarder. He spends every free minute with his skateboard because he has a plan: When he’s grown up he wants to take part in the Paralympic Games.When Maxim was two years old he lost both his legs in a fire. His mother gave him up for adoption. The entire country learned about Maxim’s fate. Reports about him were all over Russian media. Finally a Russian/American couple from St. Pet

2020, 55 min
by Lin Sternal

Perro and his grandmother fear for their homeland in southern Nicaragua, an area which is threatened by the planned construction of the 300-km-long 'El Gran Canal'. The documentary accompanies the silent and nature-loving boy amidst the inevitable farewell to his old life in the jungle and his new beginnings in the city. (PR Berlinale)Perro recounts the coming-of-age story of young Perro (12), whose life in the traditional indigenous community of Bangkukuk is being threatened by the mega-project

Germany 2020, 16 min
by Nele Dehnenkamp

Five years ago, Hanan would never have dreamed that she would now be a swimming teacher. Fleeing IS from northern Iraq, in 2015 she crossed the Mediterranean with her family in a rubber dinghy. The boat filled with water, and Hanan couldn’t swim.She has an instant understanding with children who are afraid of water. Images of the vast blue sea and the fear of drowning are etched into her memory. Now living in Wolfsburg, Germany, she’s determined to have her younger brother learn to swim before h

Germany 2020, 25 min
by Bernadette Hauke

When the ground wobbles under his feet, Laurin knows: only a few roots prevent it from sinking into the swamp. He doesn't find that scary, but rather exciting. Marshes are habitat for many plants and animals and they store more CO2 than all trees combined. That is why Laurin wants to prevent peat from being extracted and the last of the marshes from being destroyed imore and more.

Germany 2018, 80 min
by Johanna Bentz, Sandra Dajani, Madeleine Dallmeyer, Nazgol Emami, Diana Menestrey, Camilo Colmenares, Khaled Nawal

How do we go about making films for children fleeing wars and crises? What can such films accomplish? What inspiration can the cinema give these children for their future? Can film work relieve suffering or even provide hope? Two years ago, the Goethe Institute launched the Missing Movies project. The plan is to shoot a number of nonverbal short films to be used in refugee camps. Following an international call for proposals, a group of 7 young filmmakers from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, Colo

Germany 2018, 65 min
by Mieko Azuma, Susanne Mi-Son Quester

Five people between the ages of 10 and 84 talk about why they had to leave their home and what it was like to arrive in Germany. What is different? What do they miss? Between scenes of daily life at the new school and on the football ground the lives that Ahmad, Frau Schiller, Leila, Lena and Cacau left behind and the stories of the flights they lived through come alive in animated sequences. (DOK.Leipzig, Marie-Thérèse Antony)

Germany 2017, 25 min
by Andre Hörmann

Ari lives with her family in the outskirts of Mexico-City. Last year her grandpa Pedro died. She misses him badly, but this November the 12 years old girl hopes to meet him again – at the Day of the Dead, the annual celebration of those who passed away. Mexicans believe that the souls of the dead visit the families of the bereaved to be close to them. Ari wants to welcome her grandpa with a very special gift.

Germany 2017, 25 min
by Bernadette Hauke

Vi lives in a floating house but she cannot swim. All the houses in her village in northern Vietnam are built on water. So if Vi wants to visit her friends or go to school, she has to travel with a boat. These rawboats are wobbly and overturn very easyly if the sea is rough. So Vi is afraid of the water because she has fallen in for several times.The thirteen year old girl decides to learn how to swim. Grandpa Nghe shows her to hold the breath in the fish cages around the house, but these tanks

2013, 15 min
by Andre Hörmann

Little Bhavini dreams her way out of a Mumbai slum into a career as a dancer. She keeps practicing the steps of traditional Indian dancing, she keeps begging her mother to allow her to take lessons with a famous teacher. But that is expensive and they are barely scraping by since father died. So Bhavini begins to work at her mother’s beauty salon. But there is another obstacle to overcome: the entrance examination…In this new instalment of his series about children in megacities, André Hörmann o