IDFA Junior: Ochtend

Programme

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  Girl Away from Home

  Nastia is a gymnast in Kyiv, training intensively with her four teammates for the Ukrainian National Championships. At other times they make dance clips, perform acrobatic feats, and giggle a lot. Nastia knows that together they can achieve anything. But then the war breaks out, and Nastia’s parents send her to her grandmother in Germany, hoping that the separation will be temporary.
  
  In this youth documentary, Nastia speaks in voice-over about how she’s experienced this intense year—how she had to leave the country in a hurry and was then stuck indoors in a German apartment block for weeks on end. She sadly re-watches the carefree clips she made just a short time ago with her besties. On the phone to her parents, she bravely tells them all is well. But it’s not. She’s wondering whether she’ll ever see her homeland again. Nastia only starts feeling a bit better once she has joined a local gymnastics club in Germany. The war is still raging, but the surroundings now feel like a kind of home. A story about a resilient girl, strong family ties, friendships, and the solace you can find in sport.

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  Figure

  A short stop-motion film about a wooden mannequin—a figure you can put in different positions to use as a model for drawing or painting. An arm wobbles, toes stretch out, the head slowly turns upward: something (or someone?) is gradually coming to life.
  
  Filmmaker Jonas Sars shows with beautiful simplicity how the figure increasingly becomes aware of its body, identity and possibilities to express itself. But with this awareness also comes insight into its limitations. Can you seek freedom, even if you’re “only” a wooden doll on a metal stick?

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  Nelson the Piglet

  Nelson is a miniature pig—at least, that’s what the Verbeek family were told when they bought him as a cute little piglet. But seven years and 500 kilos later, Nelson has become a big problem. The neighbours and the housing association think it’s unacceptable to have such a large and smelly animal in a residential neighbourhood. Son Brandon is being bullied at school because of his pet. But everything changes when the media get wind of Nelson: the family becomes an internet sensation and is famous all over the Netherlands.
  
  Filmmaker Anneke de Lind van Wijngaarden (How Nikita Got Herself a Horse) follows the family through all their ups and downs, with affectionate close-ups of Nelson, who is befuddled at all the commotion he is causing. At times this upbeat documentary is more like a short feature film, because of the way it builds tension and introduces the various characters—including the police officer who comes to check on whether the neighbors’ complaints about offensive smells are justified.

• Rocknrollers

  Playing records, practising for gigs together and giggling about who can let off the foulest farts: this is what life is all about for the three teenagers Sia, Bas and Vince. Together, they form the Dutch psychedelic blues-rock band Morganas Illusion. Then Sia becomes depressed – it looks like his illness will have major consequences for his friendship with the two other band members, not to mention the success of the band. As they lie chilling out on a Persian rug, Bas and Vince talk about how devastating it is for them to see their singer and guitarist Sia so sick. We watch as Sia celebrates his 16th birthday, wearing big sunglasses like a real rock star. But when the camera gets a close-up of his wrist, it becomes clear how bad things have become for the talented teenager. Will Morganas Illusion ever be the energetic rock band it once was? This is a moving coming-of-age story about depression and the beneficial, healing effects of music and friendship.