The story of a donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly.
In a typical English working-class town, the juveniles have nothing more to do than hang around in gangs. One day, Alan Darcy, a highly motivated man with the same kind of youth experience, starts trying to get the young people off the street and into doing something they can believe in: Boxing. Darcy opens a boxing club, aiming to bring the rival gangs together.
From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.
In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.
When a scuffle breaks out between the members of a criminal youth gang, one of them is stabbed to death. Since the knife belongs to the gang member Rocky, the judge assumes that he must have stabbed him too and sentences him to six years in prison. When he is released, he immediately sets off in search of the real culprit.
Zeit der Fische
Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.
Paradise Mall
Various stories of how crack cocaine has infiltrated the inner-city streets. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo's novel "Life is Hot in Cracktown".
Sent into a drunken tailspin when his entire unit is killed by a gang of thrill-seeking punks, disgraced Hong Kong police inspector Wing needs help from his new rookie partner, with a troubled past of his own, to climb out of the bottle and track down the gang and its ruthless leader.
A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
Story of swords and boys.
About sixteen-year-old Susanne and her relationship with her parents and friends. To make her friend Peter jealous, she flirts heavily with a forty-year-old silversmith from the sailing club where she works.
A brief extract of four kids' lives somewhere in France. Quentin, who won a writers contest and now pays more attention to his career as an author than to his friends, beautiful Julie, his girl-friend, much more mature than she looks, falling in love with Quentin's very best friend Jimmy, who is kind of stuck in his unability of self-expression and grown up under bad social circumstances. And there is the shy boy Samir, exiled from Algeria, who lost his "brother" and only friend some time ago. Samir heavily falls in love with Quentin, but he can't handle it...
An autobiographical film based on Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's memories of his youth growing up in Taiwan after emigrating from mainland China.
The story of two rival gangs in Munich, one composed of German teens and the other of Turkish ones. The German version of "West Side Story".
Angela is a young waitress who turns her back on society when she meets and falls in love with Pablo, a reckless criminal delinquent. Along with Pablo’s gang of car thieves, the pair embark on a drug and disco-fueled robbery spree as they hurtle toward oblivion.
A troubled teenager attempts to conquer the girl he's in love with, who seems out of reach. He's lured into criminal activities and becomes alienated from family and friends.
A neo-Nazi organization is recruiting in the 1980s, and two youths of high-school age join for similar reasons, despite class differences. Thomas is the son of a self-made industrialist father and a scolding social-climbing mother. He attends private school and has a brother who's an accomplished musician, but neither can satisfy mom's constant demands for school and social success. She belittles them, and there's incessant bickering at their table. Charly, a dropout, is the son of an abusive, alcoholic laborer. In the youth group, each finds order, respect, camaraderie, and adults who seem to value them. Where do domestic abuse and sanctioned political violence end?
At the height of the Great Depression, Tommy's mother has been out of work for months when Eddie's father loses his job. Eager not to burden their parents, the two high school sophomores decide to hop the freight trains and look for work.