Children's Film Festival Seattle 2019 – Borders, Boundaries and Home (Shorts Program)
$12 General Admission
$9 Student/Senior
$7 Member
Visiting Artist
** Filmmaker (and Executive Director) Vivian Hua (Searching Skies) in attendance! **
About
Ages 13+
All children have the right to a home, but for the young people in some of these narrative and documentary films, political and religious issues threaten their futures. The films are made by filmmakers in response to worldwide migration issues, and also include a documentary from a dream city, where origins and cultural differences do not matter to a tight-knit group of boys.
77 min.
Content advisory: This program explores tough issues, and stories that do not always have happy or clear endings. There is one mild swear word in Searching Skies, spoken in frustration by an uncle to his nephew who is showing a lack of compassion.
Malá
(Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Czech Republic, animation, 2017, 10 min, in Vietnamese & Czech with English subtitles) West Coast premiere!
A Vietnamese girl grows up in a European town. As she gets used to what it means to be strange and at home at the same time, her family inevitably heads towards a fatal decision. Who will leave and who will stay?
199 Little Heroes: Miral from Palestine
(Sigrid Klausmann-Sittler, Germany, live action, 2018, 14 min, Arabic with English subtitles) North American premiere!
Miral is an exuberant girl who has amazing athletic ability. Her life is beautiful and full, in spite of the walls that surround her.
Caracol Cruzando
(Pamela Chavez, US, animation, 2018, 16 min, Spanish with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!
A Costa Rican girl decides if she will bring her pet turtle across the US border.
Searching Skies
(Vivian Hua, US, live action, 2017, 9 min, English & Arabic)
When a Syrian refugee family is invited to a Christian family’s Christmas dinner, they are caught between opposing viewpoints for and against them, until an unexpected event suddenly occurs.
Harbourboyz
(Mirjam Marks, The Netherlands, live action, 2018, 15 min, Dutch with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!
For five 11-year-old friends, each with different origins (Turkish, Surinamese, Syrian, Chinese and Dutch), living in a working-class Dutch district, cultural and religious differences do not matter.
Bachir in Wonderland
(Els Duran & Evelien Vehof, The Netherlands, 2018, 15 min, Arabic & Spanish with English subtitles)
Bachir dreams of swimming in the sea, but he lives in a refugee camps in the middle of a desert. Despite having no passport, he is offered the chance of a lifetime: to go to a summer camp in Spain.
