The East End Film Festival : films about children and young people and films made by them

Alison Poltock, the Artistic Director of London’s East End Film Festival which this year runs from June 13th to June 26th suggests the following films may be of interest to regular visitors to the goodenoughcaring website.

Angels in Exile

• Angels In Exile is a challenge to pervading myths about street children. The street kids of DurbanSouth Africa mainly have no way out of a cycle of violence, murder and abduction. The film embeds itself in the community, many of whom are huffing glue as a means of temporary escape, and who are in turn facing addiction and a life of crime. The film was made over 8 years and follows Zuleka and Ariel, chronicling their entire adolescence and their fight to survive both immediate dangers and their memories of the awful circumstances that originally forced them on to the street. Sensitively narrated by Charlize Theron, Angels in Exile reminds us that street chilfdren are exactly that, children. (Director : Billy Rafferty)

• In Mass E Bhat one boy’s story weaves together the stories of several children to explore what means to grow up in Bangladesh. As social worker Nasir wanders the alleyways of Dhaka’s Korrail slum searching for working children he can enrol in school, he recounts the story of his own childhood, and his journey through a rapidly developing country. (Director : Richard York)

• Screen Test Shorts is a collection of short films programmed in collaboration with Screen Test, the national student film festival, celebrating the best work from students based in London colleges.

• The Internet’s Own Boy : The Story Of Aaron Swartz  A programming prodigy, information activist and a tragic casualty of the crackdown on so called 'internet piracy’, Aaron Swartz was an internet celebrity from his role while he was 14 years old in developing RSS to co-foundind Reddit, he was a pioneer of the digital realm. He was also a political campaigner, whose dream of a better world meant access to information, a cause which led to him, under the pressure offacing a 35 years jail term and heavy fines, to take his own life. (Director : Brian Krappenberger)

• Neighbours : From Mumbai to Mile End A Selection of short documentary films made by young people about hoods in Mumbai and East London exploring how generations take root in, and young people make use of, their environment in these two very different but vibrant cities. The films feature rag-picking, breakdance, ghettoization and enjoying a day in the hood. The Screening will be followed by a discussion on what home means. This is a collaboration between Mile End Community Project, School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Queen Mary, University of London.

• Willow and the Wind A school window is broken, and kids can’t concentrate because the rain is getting in. The culprit isn’t allowed back into class until he mends it. So he carries a large pane of glass by hand across the countryside in a gale. The wing blows; but will he crack? This simplest of stories becomes an epic quest, poetic and breathtakingly beautiful. It has big-hearted humanism, but Hitchcockian tension too. An edge-of-seat masterpiece. (Director : Mohammad Ali Talebi)

Willow and the Wind

Access the East End Film Festival’s full programme for the venues and scheduling of these and all the other films and events the festival at East End Film Festival programme.

This news item first appeared on the home page of goodenoughcaring.com on May 24th, 2014