For ages 11+
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This documentary tells the story of 12-year-old Mussa, who won’t speak for reasons that no one understands. He is an African refugee living in Tel Aviv, and for the past five years he’s been bussed from his troubled neighborhood to an upscale private school. Mussa’s Israeli classmates are his best friends, but he chooses to communicate with them only through gestures. In a time when he feels powerless, Mussa takes control by filming and documenting his own experience. This deeply relevant film will leave kids with plenty to talk about.

Notes to parents: This film about family and friendship tells the story of a child who understands four languages, but chooses not to speak any of them. This is his protective defense against almost insurmountable problems: he’s a refugee with undocumented parents who face deportation. The film doesn’t sugarcoat Mussa’s sadness, instead showing how a very real, and ultimately very resilient child copes with a distressing situation. “The School Bag”(which screens with Mussa) deals, in part, with the effects of terrorism.

Screens with:

Fruit (Gerhard Funk, Germany, animated, 2016, 7 min, no dialogue) This entrancing creation story tells of a dialogue between two mythological forces, the West and the East.
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The School Bag (Dheeraj Jindal, India, live action, 2016, 15 min, in Urdu with English subtitles) West coast premiere! Young Farooq wants a new school bag for his birthday, but his mother seems unmoved. This film is about surprises we plan, and ones we can’t even imagine.