IDFA Junior Ochtend

Dancing for You (Erlend E. Mo, 2015, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, 30')

Vilde is determined to be the first girl to compete in the championship for halling, a remarkable Norwegian folk dance – and she wants her grandpa to see her doing it.

Halling is a remarkable Norwegian folk dance traditionally performed by only men, as a display of physical prowess. Twelve-year-old Vilde is training hard to become the first girl ever to become the Norwegian champion. In a fantastic outdoor scene, she and her dance coach get up to some fascinating antics, dancing on an excavator in a quarry, along tree trunks, through waterfalls, up mountain slopes and on riverbeds.

And they always move in the same, calm cadence. In other scenes, the vast natural expanses play a crucial role as well – Vilde clearly feels a strong connection to them. She”s also very close to her sick grandfather, who tells her that family and friends are the most important things in life – and feeling good about yourself is important, too. The scenes with the two of them together clearly show how strong the bond is between them. Vilde continually leans against her grandfather or sits on his lap, stroking his cheek. She hopes that the strength she needs to win the championship will also be a stimulus for her grandpa; perhaps seeing how much she enjoys life will help him keep fighting the cancer.

Sounds for Mazin (Ingrid Kamerling, 2012, The Netherlands,19')

Thanks to an operation, Mazin will soon be able to hear like everybody else. How much will this change his life as he sees and hears it?

Something really major is about to change for Mazin. He has been deaf since birth, but soon he's going to get a cochlear implant. If all goes well, he'll be able to recognize all sorts of noises and understand speech. He is very excited about this, even though it's a bit scary.

What if the operation doesn't work, like what happened to his classmate Katelin? She only got nauseous from it and wants nothing more to do with CIs. But on the other hand, what if Mazin's operation does work? What will his life be like then? He won't abandon all his deaf friends, will he? Sounds for Mazin follows the entire process, from the lead-up to the operation to getting used to hearing with the implant.

Special attention is paid to the way in which Mazin perceives sounds, but at the same time, his relationships with his friends and chats with Katelin reveal that the implant will radically change his world in more ways than one.

Skatekeet (Edward Cook, 2015, The Netherlands,15')

A talented, headstrong, sassy girl”s search for her own place in the boy-dominated world of skateboarding.

“You only have eyes for your skateboard,” Keet”s girlfriends always say when the conversation turns to romance. And it”s true, skating is what this tough 10-year-old likes best of all. This is beautifully illustrated for us in a slow-motion shot that zooms in on her face, pure enjoyment plastered all over it, the wind in her hair, the sun on her skin. Every now and then she drops out of the frame to push off and accelerate.

In the meantime, we hear her voice: she says that she gets teased a lot by other girls for acting like a boy. She tries to ignore them as much as possible. Skatekeet follows her in skate parks, on a half-pipe, being chased away from chic office buildings or roaming around deserted, graffiti-covered neighborhoods. Skating is her thing – that much is clear. She also tries to connect with other skaters, but being a girl doesn”t make this easy.

Boys are wilder and make stupid jokes, she says – and the film confirms this. Nevertheless, the levelheaded and talented Keet is able to make her way in the boy-dominated world of skating, looking for her place.