Kanashii kibun de joke 1985
1h 48min | Drama, Family | 26 April 1985 (Japan)
Storyline:
Hiroshi Igarashi (Beat Takeshi) is a successful comedic “talento” rampant on Japanese TV. His wife left him for Australia because she felt she did not belong in this life entirely turned towards a hectic media life. Hiroshi thus lives alone in the company of his son, Ken, ten years old, solitary and mature child, with a pronounced taste for music. Hiroshi does not wonder too much about the fact that his son is a little on his own but everything changes the day Ken is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor …
Gentle Ben 2002
1h 40min | Drama, Family | TV Movie 25 March 2002
Storyline:
When a boy is left in the care of his mountain-ranger uncle, he learns valuable lessons about man’s relationship with wild animals, and how the mayor poses a threat to local legend Ben – a grizzly bear.
Far til fire & vikingerne 2020
1h 25min | Comedy, Family | 1 October 2020 (Denmark)
Storyline:
The otherwise close-knit family is in crisis. Mie and Ole can no longer bear to share a room, Søs is tired of acting as the family’s surrogate mother, and Dad does not have the usual surplus to tackle Uncle Anders’ peculiar behavior. Little Per is left, who is just sad about it all. Uncle Anders therefore registers the family for a stay at a family therapy place, where the family will live as Vikings for a week. In the company of the children’s holiday guest Olivia, the family sets off to get things in order. With them, of course, they also have the elephant Bodil, the whole family’s old stuffed animal, who suddenly comes to play a major role when she is involved in one of the eager therapists’ self-invented Viking exercises.
County Lines 2019
1h 30min | Drama | 4 December 2020 (UK)
Storyline:
The term ‘county lines’ describes the practice of using children to traffic drugs from cities to coastal towns and rural areas, an under-reported fact of modern British life. Inspired by the stories he heard while mentoring kids at an East London pupil referral unit, writer-director Henry Blake’s powerful feature debut boasts a compelling central performance by Conrad Khan as 14-year-old Tyler, whose mum Toni (Ashley Madekwe) is struggling to provide for him and his sister. Excluded from school, Tyler becomes a train-bound narcotics courier for local criminal Simon, played with a calm menace by Harris Dickinson. County Lines (2019) depicts the ensuing cycle of debt, deceit and violent exploitation with a quiet stylistic confidence that’s all the more haunting for being so rigorously unsentimental.
Hugo and Josephine 1967
Hugo och Josefin (original title)
G | 1h 22min | Family, Comedy, Drama | 16 December 1967 (Sweden)
Storyline:
Josefin is a six-year-old girl who lives isolated in the countryside, where her father is a priest. She has no friends until she meets Hugo. He is a carefree boy who rather walk in the forest than go to school. Together with the gardener they make up fun things to do.
The Distant Barking of Dogs 2017
Olegs krig (original title)
1h 31min | Documentary, War | 23 November 2018 (Sweden)
Storyline:
THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS is set in Eastern Ukraine on the frontline of the war. The film follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of war. Oleg lives with his beloved grandmother, Alexandra, in the small village of Hnutove. Having no other place to go, Oleg and Alexandra stay and watch as others leave the village. Life becomes increasingly difficult with each passing day, and the war offers no end in sight. In this now half-deserted village where Oleg and Alexandra are the only true constants in each other’s lives, the film shows just how fragile, but crucial, close relationships are for survival. Through Oleg’s perspective, the film examines what it means to grow up in a war zone. It portrays how a child’s universal struggle to discover what the world is about grows interlaced with all the dangers and challenges the war presents. Thus, THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS unveils the consequences of war bearing down on the children in Eastern Ukraine, and by natural extension, the scars and self-taught life lessons this generation will carry with them into the future.
