Age: 10+

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Echoes of the Rainbow

Winner of the Crystal Bear (youth audience award) at the Berlin Film Festival and Hong Kong’s official entry for this year’s Oscars®, Echoes of the Rainbow is a graceful and emotionally powerful tale based on the filmmaker’s real-life childhood. It’s the spring of 1969 and the world will have to wait another six months before Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon — but our young hero “Big Ears” is running through the streets of Hong Kong with a goldfish bowl on his head, Big brother Desmond (played wonderfully by Cantopop heartthrob, Aarif Lee) is a gold-medal track star and ace student who plays guitar and nurtures a nascent romance with soft-spoken cutie pie Flora. Meanwhile, their parents work their fingers to the bone running a tiny neighborhood shoe store. Their dream is simple: all they want is for their children to have a better life than they did — and this mood of nostalgic optimism and yearning is reflected perfectly by the sappy 60’s pop ballads wafting from big brother’s transistor radio. But the sunny tone soon darkens as the family is beset by a slumping economy, social unrest, and the onset of Hong Kong’s annual typhoons — presaging an even more wrenching family tragedy. This wonderful, bittersweet saga is almost epic in scale, evoking good times and bad times, love and loss, with sincerity, humor, and tenderness.
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Book Girl and Cabinet Girl

A sweet and tender story of friendship, jealousy, and love. Book Girl and Cabinet Girl meet and become friends. But then Scissors Boy comes along and cuts them apart.
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Benigni

A lonesome xylophone player discovers a fleshy lump growing under his arm. But when he attempts to remove it, the tumor displays some unconventional qualities.
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Dust Kid

Waking up late on a cold winter’s afternoon, Eujin finds a small dust kid under her bed —a miniature version of herself sitting alone and dejected in the shadows.
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Monstre Sacré

In a twist on Hans Christian Anderson, a baby dinosaur is hatched into a family of ducklings and grows into a misunderstood monster and international superstar.
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The Wonder Hospital

A boy with a misshapen head looks to improve his appearance through the wonders of plastic surgery and altered reality, in this super creepy hospital/funhouse film.
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Ghild

A story about a boy who was born a giant. Featuring Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville) and Harland Williams (Half Baked).
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Lightness

Sofia wants to be a movie director and constantly follows her mother and teen sister, Lola, around with a camera. But while capturing her footage she makes the discovery that Lola secretly writes odes to hunger and longs to turn into a butterfly and “be taken by the wind.”
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Rose & Violet

Siamese twins joined at the hand, Rose and Violet are star aerialists in a traveling circus. However, their perfect synchronization is thrown into chaos when a masked Strong Man joins the troop, pulling the sisters apart and resulting in a disastrous accident.
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The Monster of Nix

From Dutch filmmaker and graphic novelist Rosto comes a Pan’s Labyrinthian animated opera featuring Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits, a dark fairytale filled with odd creatures and odder songs. Willy awakes one morning to find his village destroyed by an all-devouring creature named Virgil and sets out on a quest to destroy the monster.
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Scary Therapy

A vampire with first-date nerves, a zombie struggling with his brain-eating disorder, and a human-fly with parental issues. Everybody needs a little help from time to time.
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The Maker

In a dark room, a glass-eyed puppet is constructing a look-alike companion, while the sands drain away in an hourglass and violin music plays in a minor key. He completes the puppet but she doesn’t come alive. At last her eyes open and they share a few brief moments of togetherness before the sand runs out.
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Wilis

In eerie, Svankmajer-style puppet animation, a boy is lured deep into the forest by a trio of ethereal enchantresses.
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Chernokids

In this utterly creepy dystopian nightmare, a family of deformed mutant children leave their orphanage and trek through the ruined landscape of a crumbling nuclear power plant to bring a gift of fish to their “mother.”
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I-Do-Air

A young girl is afraid to dive into the pool. Retreating to the locker room, she holds her breath and floats to a serene place within her head. Later she sees two unexpected creatures swimming gracefully under the water and takes a plunge into their magical world. This BAFTA winning film has played Berlin, LA and other top fests.
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Little Miss Eyeflap

A fantastical and magical fable of a young woman caught between two cultures. Little Miss Eyeflap is sent to grandma’s house wearing a cap with blinders, so she will not be enticed by distractions along the way. But everything is so beautiful! Magic butterflies, snow capped mountains, flowering meadows, and an earnest young lover in lederhosen.
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The Persistent Resistance of Vision

This experimental animated film mimics the optical illusion effect of a thaumatrope (look it up) by rapidly alternating still drawings of a bird, a cage, and a Cheshire-like cat to start-and-stop electro-circus music.
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Make-Down

In a fantasy vision of transformation, a woman’s face becomes a canvas.
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Rubika

Welcome to Rubika, a planet with a fancy gravity.
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Escape His Stare

While selecting a chicken at the marketplace, Mr. Wang notices a rooster looking at him. As the hatchet comes down on his dinner, the man cannot escape the bird’s reproachful stare and he becomes overcome by feelings of guilt. At home the scene replays in his mind, haunting his waking and sleeping life — but what can he do? His wife is demanding chicken for dinner again!
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Familyship

Korean horror movie spoof stokes real tension while poking not-so-subtle fun at the parental pressures some kids face.
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Fat

“Do you think I’m fat?” is a hard question to pose and a harder one to answer. This personal documentary finds power in its simplicity and directness, as the filmmaker explores what it means to be “fat” and the perceptions of those closest to her.
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Whale Bird

Delicate animation in pale colors with translucent, overlapping layers sets a gentle tone in this story about friendship between a girl and a gargantuan whale bird who lives under the sea.
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Swimsuit 46

Chantal is a chubby 12-year-old who is training vigorously for her upcoming swimming competition. Despite her brothers teasing and her judgemental mother, Chantal will do whatever it takes to win.
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Hairy

Two teenage girls head to a remote spot to be alone in the sun and listen to music. Farah is visiting from the US, while her cousin Nilou was raised in Iran and is much more inhibited about her body and her sexuality. But Farah is determined to shake up Nilou’s conservative ways.
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Jessi

Jessi is having a hard time adjusting to life with her foster family. With her mom in prison, she struggles to maintain a connection to her true family — and so she runs away to stay with her elder sister back in their hometown. When she gets there, however, she discovers that she cannot get back the life she once had.
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I Am a Girl!

Joppe is just like any average 13-year-old girl: she wears make-up, gets crushes, and loves gossiping with her friends.
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Dry Fish

A gently paranoid musical animation about finding yourself in unfamiliar surroundings.
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Kauwboy

The Netherlands’ official entry for this year’s Oscars® and winner of the Best First Feature award at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Kauwboy is a tender portrait of a boy struggling to come to terms with a family that’s not what it once was. With his country-singer mother absent, Jojo lives alone with his security guard father, a man of few words, who is quick to anger and has seemingly no affection for his 10-year-old son. Left to his own devices, Jojo discovers an abandoned baby crow in the woods near their house — and finds solace in caring for this small creature, who is even more alone and vulnerable than he is. Bringing the crow home, Jojo has to exert great efforts to hide the bird from his dad (under his bed, in the closet, in the fridge…) and the viewer is ever on edge against the inevitable outburst that would attend its discovery. But what really drives the drama is the questionable whereabouts of Jojo’s mother, who seems never to return from tour. Filmed in the rural Dutch countryside and featuring wonderfully natural performances, Kauwboy is a beautifully cinematic, bittersweet film that explores issues of loss and sorrow, while painting a joyfully upbeat picture of acceptance and love.
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Rootless Heart

Two high school kids explore an abandoned house. There is something lurking in the dark.
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