Fertile sand

Dad's Dead

December 2002 •English

Our narrator looks fondly back at his childhood in Liverpool and the antics of his best friend Johnno. Well known for being a showman and a keen one for joking and the like, Johnno starts to change for the worse after he announced that his father has died.

Small Change

March 1976 •French

Various experiences of childhood are seen in several sequences that take place in the small town of Thiers, France. Vignettes include a boy's awakening interest in girls, couples double-dating at the movies, brothers giving their friend a haircut, a boy dealing with an abusive home life, a baby and a cat sitting by an open window, a child telling a dirty joke, and a boy who develops a crush on his friend's mother.

The Last Winter

October 1989 •English

Tells the story of a young man's struggle to keep his world from changing. Placed in the rural setting of the mid 1950s.

Afterimage

December 2024 •Tagalog

Experiencing extreme sleep deprivation for months, a young man tape-records his memories for preservation against sinister, clandestine watchers.

Lavender

September 2015 •

A portrait of a depressed mother and her child.

SAM.

April 2023 •English

During summer of 1994, Sam, a free spirited ten-year-old girl, tags along with her older brother and his friends where she enjoys playing as one of the boys until she experiences the societal limitations reserved for adolescent girls and the fleeting innocence of childhood.

Mirror

March 1975 •Russian

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Andai Ibu Tidak Menikah Dengan Ayah

September 2025 •Indonesian

When her medical school scholarship was at risk of being revoked, Alin, who had been living away from home, was forced to return. After coming back, Alin’s perspective began to shift. She realized for the first time that her mother had been living in hardship, while her father was rarely around. Her younger sibling and older sibling also had to bear heavy burdens for the family, even sacrificing themselves and their dreams. While at home, Alin accidentally discovered her mother’s diary. Its pages were filled with memories from her mother’s youth, including her first love. This made Alin wonder: if her mother hadn’t married her father, would she have lived a happier life?

A Small Life

October 2000 •English

A tragic portrait of mother and child exploring grief through music and lyrical imagery.

A Girl Returned

October 2021 •Italian

A 13 years old girl is forced to go living with another family for reasons unknown.

Like Stars on Earth

December 2007 •Hindi

Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate. Colours, fish, dogs, and kites don't seem important to the adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks, and neatness. Ishaan cannot seem to get anything right in class; he is then sent to boarding school, where his life changes forever.

Gieselmann

April 2021 •German

How do you become who you are? Through the slights one experiences, believes freelance journalist and author Dirk Gieselmann. One late evening, he is alone in his apartment. His camera is set up in front of him, with which he records himself. In doing so, he first introduces himself personally and announces that he will call three people. In the telephone calls that follow, he confronts his interlocutors with long-ago encounters, experienced ruthlessness and the accusation that they drove him out of the paradise of childhood. That evening, he wants to know what the reasons were for the slights and hopes to be able to make sense of them. He realizes that his childhood has finally come to an end and remembers the world of thoughts that surrounded him when he was a little boy. Then he receives an unexpected call from his family.

Viktoria

September 2014 •Bulgarian

Dreaming of the West, Boryana is determined not to have a child in communist Bulgaria. Nonetheless, her daughter Viktoria enters the world in 1979, curiously missing a belly button, and is declared the country’s Baby of the Decade. Pampered by her mother state until the age of nine, Viktoria’s decade of notoriety comes crashing down with the rest of European communism. But can political collapse and the hardship of new times finally bring Viktoria and her reluctant mother closer together

The True History of Billie the Kid

August 2018 •English

Billie visits her ageing father in jail, revealing that her childhood in his care was not as safe and happy as he might have believed. Will she get her revenge?

Haami

May 2018 •Bengali

Little Bhutu and Chini are best friends. When Bhutu kisses Chini, their innocent friendship leads to a major scandal. Who is to be blamed when our society lets down the little ones?

The Life After

September 2013 •Spanish

Two brothers, Samuel and Rodrigo, live with their mother in a suburban town. One day the mother, who has mental health problems, disappears leaving nothing behind but a note. David Pablos is a young Mexican filmmaker, born in 1982. His first short film, El mundo al atardecer, was made in 2007. La canción de los niños muertos (2008) was his second short film; he presented his first feature-length film Una frontera, todas las fronteras (2010) at the Berlinale Talent Campus before coming to Venice with his second film, La vida despues, for the 70th Venice International Film Festival.

Matinée

September 1977 •Spanish

Jorge and Aarón, two young boys growing up in a quiet town often miss classes to go together to the cinema matinee. One day they are kidnapped by robbers while traveling in a truck. After the disintegration of the band, they begin to participate in the robberies until the adventure turns into something more sinister and dangerous.

Dreamcatcher

March 2003 •English

Four boyhood pals perform a heroic act and are changed by the powers they gain in return. Years later, on a hunting trip in the Maine woods, they're overtaken by a vicious blizzard that harbors an ominous presence. Challenged to stop an alien force, the friends must first prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians by a military vigilante ... and then overcome a threat to the bond that unites the four of them.

The Tree of Life

May 2011 •English

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

Hola... Señor Dios

March 1970 •Spanish