My Mother

Between parental love, youth welfare offices and bureaucracy, three educators try their hardest to create a temporary home for children. This is not always easy, as the most diverse personalities and their stories clash here. And yet the residential group becomes a kind of surrogate family for the children. At the back of their minds, however, is always the question: for how long?

Known for her intimate films, director Kim O’Bomsawin (Call Me Human) invites viewers into the lives of Indigenous youth in this absorbing new documentary. Shot over six years, the film brings us the moving stories, dreams, and experiences of three groups of children and teens from different Indigenous nations: Atikamekw, Eeyou Cree, and Innu. In following these young people through the formative years of their childhood and right through their high school years, we witness their daily lives, their ideas, and aspirations for themselves and their communities, as well as some of the challenges they face.

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

A group of young architects, confined to a forest in Barcelona during the COVID crisis, explore the problems generated by the ambition of wanting to be completely self-sufficient.

A harsh and dreamy story of a young girl from the American West and her longing heart. Through Betty we experience a tight family clan of children born by children born by children where love and dependency go hand in hand.

À hauteur d'enfant

"Against an adverse sky, Celeste raises her flight. If he went up, nobody knows, nobody saw."

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.

A group of educators led by Fernand Deligny are working to create contact with autistic children in a hamlet of the Cevennes.

Using drama, comedy, and music, this video addresses safer sex, AIDS hysteria, relationships, homophobia, the hazards of sharing needles. Young people are encouraged to examine their ideas, attitudes, and practices, and to make personal health choices based on accurate information. What's wrong with this picture? was written by young people for young people. It uses young people's language and experiences, proving particularly effective where other forms of AIDS education have failed.

On June 12, 2019, the Committee to Investigate Violence in Youth Care presented its final report. The conclusions were startling. Kim Feenstra set out to find out what progress has been made within the Youth Care system since then and ended up in a circle of grief and pain dominated by money, power and powerlessness. In her search, Kim Feenstra spoke to many people involved. The stories can be described as downright shocking. In many cases Youth Care appears to act as a revenue model that is exploiting parents and children. The complex system has only one entrance, but the exit is obstructed by all stakeholders who want to maintain their revenue model. The people who really matter, the parents and children, encounter a power block of inhuman proportions. A system dominated by money, power and powerlessness.

For more than thirty years, and through his television program, Fred Rogers (1928-2003), host, producer, writer and pianist, accompanied by his puppets and his many friends, spoke directly to young children about some of life's most important issues.

Equal parts punk and psychedelia, the Flaming Lips emerged from Oklahoma City as one of the most bracing bands of the late 1980s. The Fearless Freaks documents their rise from Butthole Surfers-imitating noisemakers to grand poobahs of orchestral pop masterpieces. Filmmaker Bradley Beesely had the good fortune of living in the same neighborhood as lead Lip Wayne Coyne, who quickly enlisted his buddy to document his band's many concerts and assorted exploits. The early footage is a riot, with tragic hair styles on proud display as the boys attempt to cover up their lack of natural talent with sheer volume. During one show, they even have a friend bring a motorcycle on stage, which is then miked for sound and revved throughout the performance, clearing the club with toxic levels of carbon monoxide. Great punk rock stuff. Interspersed among the live bits are interviews with the band's family and friends, revealing the often tragic circumstances of their childhoods and early career.

In this documentary, wealthy entrepreneur Bryan Johnson puts his body and fortune on the line to defy aging and extend his life beyond all known limits.

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.

Migrant families experience violence, but they also keep beautiful memories when they arrive in new lands. Fantastic and intimate stories, recalled from childhood, travel across time and space, magically intermingling with the help of the four elements and breaking the boundaries of cinema.

Little kids, big dreams and smashingly good music – Dixieland follows the amazing progress of four members of a Ukrainian children’s brass band from Kherson. Through steady practice under the wildest of conditions, Roman (12, trumpet), Polina (10, trombone, drums and many other instruments), Nikita (12, drums) and Nikita (14, piano) produce magical music with ancient, wobbly instruments. Not least due to their wit and good humor, they persevere together, helped along by their 80+-year-old conductor and a young teacher. These children of the post-Soviet provinces use American tunes to achieve their dream – to become someone in the world and make something of their lives, no matter how dire the circumstances. From the authors of an awards winning documentary film Ukrainian Sheriffs.

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.

An unnamed passer-by is forced to trace a circular route inside an abandoned tram station, facing loss and time. The broken walls act as a channel, transmitting fragmentary, blurred and analogical memories. 

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.