Films by Laia Prat

Germany 2024, 93 min
by Marc Wiese, Juan Camilo Cruz

Corruption and mismanagement has turned Venezuela into a failed state. Over six million people have fled in recent years. Around one million children were left behind by their parents. This remarkable film follows two single mothers and their children over several months as they do what it takes to survive.In the barrio Santa Rosa de Agua, health care has collapsed and children are dying from hunger. Carolina has set up a foundation to help feed them. But the barrio is so violent, she’s had to send her own daughter, Victoria, to a children’s home. The home is an oasis in the midst of violence and deprivation but many of the children, who haven’t seen their parents for years, are traumatised. They struggle with feelings of rejection.Most people in the barrio survive by violence, prostitution, begging. “I’ve had to do lots of things for my kids,” confides Kiara. “Selling drugs, stealing, prostituting myself. Everything a woman can do for her children”. Her eldest son, Yorbenis, 14, has already joined a gang and is on the verge of his first kill. Desperate, Kiara decides to leave the country for Colombia. She takes her small children with her while Yorbenis’ remains behind. Now she’s terri!ed that he will be murdered in her absence. She knows he is being hunted by rival gangs, as well as the police….

2018, 93 min
by Bettina Renner

Haris is fifteen years old. He was born in Dresden and grew up with a self-concept of being german. But now, during puberty, Haris not only discovers girls, but also his otherness, as he says: His bosnian roots. He explores what part of him is bosnian and constructs his own identity.Haris's older sister, Adisa, was seven years old when she and her mother and brother Farouk had to flee Bosnia in 1992 and came to Dresden. When she was as old as Haris today, she tried to take away everything from Bosnia to adapt herself to her new home. Only very few people around her know that Adisa was once a refugee. She feels at home in Saxony, Dresden. It is her home.The documentary Here and There tells the story of the teenager Haris and his family. The film tells about the growing-up of a boy and pursues an universal, fundamental question of life: What is identity? How do we construct our identity? What influence does the outside have on self-attribution? What do we find inside? How do we discover ourselves? Haris will fight with his sisters. They both picture the image of a modern woman - but he has a completely different role model on his mind. Where do these thoughts come from?Our film narrates an individual family history and gives a very far-reaching and personal perspective on the societal-political issue of escape.

Germany 2009
by Witja Frank

Clowns, they laugh when it hurts, they sing when the silence needs to be broken. RED AND ALIVE is a documentary about humour as a resource and social intervention in Berlin´s hospitals and retirement homes.