Kids in Jail

Out-of-control teens across America were sent to a therapy camp in the harsh Utah desert. The conditions were brutal, but the staff were even worse.

Böttcher made his graduation film about young people who had become delinquent in a youth work yard in Thuringia. Already here a striking feature of his later films becomes apparent: Jürgen Böttcher gives his protagonists a lot of space; he approaches them without prejudice, empathetically and carefully. In addition, his curiosity can be felt in the life situations and stories of his characters.

An urgent, heart-breaking investigation into the young lives changed forever by under-age prostitution and exploitation.

In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.

Young people who have to survive without a home base are helped on their way to a life on their own two feet at Wonen Met Kansen. Little by little, with trial and error, but with the rock-solid confidence that the supervisors have in them.

Soon after being named the new leader of his high school's gang system, Kujo grows bored with the violence and hatred that surround him. He wants desperately to abandon his post… but his once-enviable position of power has a strange way of making him feel powerless.

Single mom Flora is at a loss about what to do with her rebellious teenage son, Max. Her efforts to keep him out of trouble lead to a beat-up acoustic guitar, a washed-up LA musician, and harmony for this frayed Dublin family.

The crazed brother of a condemned killer sent to the gas chamber swears vengeance on those he holds responsible for his brother's execution.

Under the leadership of their counselor, teenagers at a juvenile detention center gain self-esteem by playing football together. Based on a true story.

The day to day life in an establishment for delinquent teenage girls.

A day in the life of a group of teens as they travel around New York City skating, drinking, smoking and deflowering virgins.

After committing a crime for which he is likely to be jailed, a Yolngu teenager convinces two of his childhood friends to join him on a journey from North East Arnhem Land to Darwin to seek help from a tribal leader.

A delinquent girl falls in love and, consequently, her life changes.

A teenage boy is blamed for a Florida neighborhood being terrorized, but the real culprits are a punk gang leading local delinquents on a nihilistic spree of destruction and mayhem.

A group of teenagers are forced to work together while being stuck in Camp Resurrection for 48 hours.

Mehdi, 17, is sentenced to perform hours of community service for a minor offense. He arrives in Auvergne where he must serve his sentence - six weeks with a taciturn lumberjack, Abel Vagnier, owner of a sawmill which he operates alone with Tonton, a former wrestler. Abel, overwhelmed, accepts the placement of Mehdi, who discovers work, the countryside and life the hard way, the shock is harsh. He finds himself immersed in a universe where his bearings no longer apply. Communication, initially difficult, is slowly established despite everyone's failings...

The stage of this work is Saitama, a suburb of Tokyo in the early Heisei period. Immediately after the bubble burst gangster countermeasures law, there were gangsters who defended the last territory and young people who freely controlled the city. The youth conflict escalated day by day and became a force that surpassed the yakuza, and the runaways were sent to juvenile prisons one after another, where exclusive rules awaited.

Egon, a young man from Jutland living with relatives in Copenhagen, meets sensible young girl Ruth and falls in love. But Egon is involved with a gang of criminals, and when they assault a man they meet in a bar they are caught by the police. Egon is sent to a juvenile home, but can he stay out of trouble?

The puppet boy Turli, who was only recently been carved from wood by the toymaker Kasimir, suddenly springs to life. Turli has nothing but nonsense on his mind and wreaks chaos everywhere he goes, although he is actually supposed to attend school.

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.