Skellig: The Owl Man 2009
1h 42m | Drama, Family, Fantasy | Release date: April 12, 2009 (United Kingdom)
Storyline:
Unatheletic pre-teen schoolboy Michael is dragged to a new home in the countryside by his father Dave. Fitting in with new classmates is hard, but Michael bonds with protective jock Leakey and a fellow nerd nature lover. In a garden shed he discovers a strange, weak man with owl wings, who becomes a friend whom he helps regain strength and evacuates him to a tree house when father burns down the shed. Learning the ‘owl man’ is a rundown force of nature, Michael hopes he can help his baby sister’s probably fatal medical condition.
When François, a journalist, is touring a big store for an article, he is chosen by the son of the owner, Rambal-Cochet, as his new toy. All afraid of the despotic industrialist who is also the newspaper’s owner, François is forced to agree to this masquerade. Becoming the friend of the child, he induces him, who wants to make a newspaper, to unveil publicly the real tyrannical way of life of his father.
Pod Jezevci skalou 1978
1h 14m | Family | Release date: December 1978 (Czechoslovakia)
Storyline:
The gamekeeper Straka lives by himself in the Bohemian forest hill. He has quarreled with his only son. He cannot come to terms with the fact that his son has abandoned his beloved forests and settled in a town. He has never even met his grandson Vasek. Following an illness, however, little Vasek needs some country air, and so one day his mother Jarmila delivers him to her father-in-law’s cottage. At first Straka is angry, but Vasek is an unaffected lad and throws himself with verve into all the little adventures that the forest provides.
Tender Rain or Another Story about Mowgli
18m | Fantasy | Russia
Storyline:
Post-apocalyptic future. The guys do not realize that one of them is not quite a person, but the “Mowgli project”. It is also unknown whether Mowgli himself knows about this.
A Son’s Promise 1990
1h 35m | Drama, Family | Release date: March 5, 1990 (United States)
Storyline:
The touching true story of 15-year-old Terry who promised his dying mother to look after his six younger brothers and keep them together as a family–a man’s job on a boy’s shoulders. He had to face many misfortunes and “parenthood” had such hard and unpleasant surprises for him, he was almost tempted to disappoint his mother..
A Dog of Flanders 1999
1h 40m | Family, Drama | Release date: August 27, 1999 (United States)
Storyline:
Poor, but happy, young Nello and his grandfather live alone, delivering milk as a livelihood, in the outskirts of Antwerp, a city in Flanders (the Flemish or Dutch-speaking part of modern-day Belgium). They discover a beaten dog (a Bouvier, a large sturdy dog native to Flanders) and adopt it and nurse it back to health, naming it Patrasche, the middle name of Nello’s mother Mary, who died when Nello was very young. Nello’s mother was a talented artist, and like his mother, he delights in drawing, and his friend Aloise is his model and greatest fan and supporter.
The Railway Children 1970
1h 49m | Drama, Family | Release date: December 22, 1970 (United Kingdom)
Storyline:
In Edwardian England, the story of the Waterbury family is told largely from the perspective of the three offspring and by oldest, teenage daughter Bobbie. Their loving and relatively affluent family life in suburban London, financially supported by father Charles’ job as a government bureaucrat, includes both parents being a present and welcome part of their children’s activities. Their existence is upended when on Christmas evening 1904, Charles is whisked away without warning by two men. Subsequently, the remaining family is forced to move, they renting a rundown and drafty house, Three Chimneys, in the rural village of Oakworth, Yorkshire. While the three children know that they are now poor by their existence, all their Mother has told Bobbie is that Father is not dead, that he will someday return to them when he is able, and for Bobbie and the others not to ask questions about what happened to him. The three are now forced to find a way to occupy their time while Mother tries to earn pocket money by writing and selling stories, many of their activities which are centered on the railway near their house and the railway tunnel a few miles away from the village station. Their life along the railway at least addresses one of the complaints the three had about their life in London, that not much ever happened, which is not the case along the railway as they get into one adventure after another. In the process, they learn to enjoy life in their new situation, which includes the friendship and admiration of many of the villagers in all the Waterburys’ inherent kindness and generosity. But the question still remains, at least for the three children, of what happened to Father.
Le Colosse aux Pieds d’Argile 2022
1h 31m | Drama | Release date: April 30, 2023 (France)
Storyline:
Sébastien is a former rugby player and a true colossus. Between 12 to 16, he seemed to be a child with the happy demeanor typical of his native Southwest region. But this joie de vivre was actually a smokescreen intended to protect his family’s harmony. During those four years, Sébastien was a victim of rape. For four years, he suffered in silence because his abuser was none other than a close friend of his parents, loved by all. Thirty years later, Sébastien remains unable to come clean. His demons are destroying him. He wavers between his need for revenge and his desire to ensure that no one else will have to live through what he has. After Sébastien meets a kid, a wounded little giant like the child he once was, and reconnects with the girl he didn’t know how to love as a teenager, he is compelled to make the right choice – justice… But at what cost?
Sparta 2022
1h 41m | Drama | Release date: May 5, 2023 (Austria)
Storyline:
Sparta is a 2022 drama film directed by Ulrich Seidl. It depicts an Austrian man named Ewald who is a non-offending pedophile and teaches judo to boys in Romania. The film is the second in a diptych; the other film, Rimini, centres on Ewald’s brother.
