Handcuff King 2002

Handcuff King 2002

Handcuff King 2002
Kahlekuningas (original title)
1h 34min | Comedy, Drama, Family | 4 October 2002 (Finland)

Storyline:

In the 1970s, a 12-year-old boy Esko lives in Tornio, northern Finland, a town bordering Sweden across the river. Esko befriends a Swedish boy, Pate, and learns to share his obsession for Harry Houdini, the legendary escape artist. While standing handcuffed on the railway bridge, contemplating a stunt jump into the icy river, he reminisces the dramatic events of the summer before. For the viewer, his problems are presented with warm humour # gang fights, feeling guilty for lying, Father losing his job, Mother losing her nerves, not to mention Grandfather having lost his willingness to speak since a traumatic war experience 30 years earlier.

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Absence 2014

Absence 2014

Absence 2014
Ausência (original title)
1h 27min | Drama | 26 November 2015 (Brazil)

Storyline:

“Absence” is a family, sexual, emotional and everyday drama. We follow Serginho’s daily routine: taking care of his mother and his 5 year-old brother; the work at the street market; his strong friendship with Mudinho and Silvinha and a complex relationship between sex and affection with Professor Ney. A net of moments in the life of a boy in transition.

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Club Sandwich 2013

Club Sandwich 2013

Club Sandwich 2013
Club sándwich (original title)
R | 1h 22min | Comedy | 21 November 2014 (Mexico)

Storyline:

Hector and his young mother Paloma go on vacation. Out of season their hotel is deserted. They spend their days sitting on the edge of the swimming pool. Then attractive Jazmin arrives and we see how Paloma loses her son to a summer fling.

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The Foster Boy 2011

The Foster Boy 2011

The Foster Boy 2011
Der Verdingbub (original title)
1h 47min | Drama | 25 October 2012 (Germany)

Storyline:

The illegitimate orphan child, 12-year-old Max, is sold by the local minister for a basket of food to the Bösiger family, who own a mountain farm. Max’ initial hope of finally finding a loving home is brutally shattered: The farmer and his wife treat Max like livestock, and their son Jacob humiliates and abuses him. Only the local teacher notices the child suffering on the farm.

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Alan Smithee 2012

Alan Smithee 2012

Alan Smithee 2012

Alan Smithee 2012
30min | Short, Comedy, Drama | 2012 (USA)

Storyline:

‘Alan Smithee’ is a film about a boy growing up. It delves into the darker side of what ‘growing up’ sometimes means: growing into your flaws, inevitably being met with the errors of your parents, and the necessity to make room for the pain. While Alan is surrounded by what is thought to be the American ideal, all the material comforts that should equate happiness, he learns that sometimes all we are is lost in the woods.

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Red Cherry 1996

Red Cherry 1996

Red Cherry 1996
Hong ying tao (original title)
2h | Drama, War | February 1996 (Germany)

Storyline:

It is 1940. Chuchu and Luo Xiaoman are Chinese students who have been sent to study in Moscow, at the International School. She is 13; he is 12. Xiaoman is from Yanan, Mao’s base after the Long March; Chuchu had seen her father executed by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang. The youngsters fit in well and learn to speak Russian… A large group of students, including Chuchu, leave for summer camp in Byelorussia accompanied by their teacher, Miss Vera. Xiaoman remains behind… The Nazis invade the Soviet Union. Moscow remains unoccupied. Xiaoman takes a job delivering condolence letters to soldiers’ families. At one apartment, he finds a mother has died. Her very young daughter, Nadia, has not realized it… The summer camp is occupied by Germans. Miss Vera is murdered. One of the Russian boys, Carl, is half-German, and helps the others to escape. They are quickly recaptured. Chuchu and several other students are sent by Gen. von Dietrich to work as servants at Nazi headquarters in the Yakovliv Monastery. The general is also a medical doctor with a peculiar hobby, tattooing…

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