20 Films you cannot miss at the 15th Busan International Kids & Youth Film Festival (Part 2)

By Asian Film Festival on July 2, 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

We continue with our list of films that you shouldn’t miss at the 15th Busan International Kids & Youth Film Festival, which will take place from July 7th – 13th, 2020 in Busan, South Korea.

About the festival:
BIKY is the one of the best festivals that has provided a venue for children and teenagers to communicate through various films from all around world. BIKY has one competition called ‘Ready~Action!’ for films directed by children and teenagers. BIKY aims to discover films by young directors and develop new contents in the relevant fields for the future.

Selected films:

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom by Pawo Choyning Dorji – Bhutan | 2019 – 110 minutes

Lunana, a very small village with only 56 people at 4,800 meters above sea level, has the most remote school on earth. The city guy Ugen, born in the capital Thimphu, has a decent job as a teacher, but he cannot give up his hope to become a singer in far away Australia. Preparing for retirement and immigration, he is forcefully transferred to Lunana. Tracking the Himalayas for days and nights to reach the village, he can barely stand the toilet without toilet paper and the bitter cold of the night. The so-called school building doesn’t even have a blackboard and is piled up with dust. Nevertheless, the children are passionate to pursue their dreams by education, and the people are very respectful in spite of inevitable poorness. Then he meets a beautiful yak herder.

Schedule:
July 7th, 2020 – Tuesday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinematheque) | 13:00 pm
July 11th, 2020 – Saturday | Busan Museum of Movies (Media Hall) | 16:30 pm

Trailer:

Moving On by Yoon Dan-bi – South Korea | 2019 – 105 minutes

A teenage girl Ok-ju and her younger brother start a life in their grandfather′s house with their father. Ok-ju’s aunt often comes to this house to play. Ok-ju spends the most precious time in her childhood here. Unforgettable love, hurt, and various good-bye moments are imprinted in Ok-ju′s life.

Schedule:
July 8th, 2020 – Wednesday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinema 2) | 15:30 pm
July 11th, 2020 – Saturday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinema 2) | 15:10 pm

Trailer:

My Name is Baghdad by Caru Alves de Souza – Brazil | 2020 – 99 minutes

A film from the skater world of São Paulo, where it is women who call the shots. Bagdá is surrounded by self-confident role models in her family. However, outside on the streets, in the venues and clubs, the old machismo continues to dominate. Bagdá and her fellow comrades-in-arms confront it defiantly.

Schedule:
July 10th, 2020 – Friday | Busan Cinema Center (Indie Plus) | 13:20 pm

Trailer:

Noodle Kid by Huo Ning, Shih Gary – Taiwan, China | 2019 – 107 minutes

Ma Xiang is a troubled 14-year-old boy who lives with his grandparents in a mountain village in China. Two years ago, his mother left home after a domestic violence incident, and his father is in jail. Ma Xiang is just a boy missing his mother, but he is also the breadwinner of the family since he doesn’t know when his father will be released. As the head of the household, the first decision he makes is to go to a city located 1,500 kilometers from his mountainous hometown and become an apprentice at a noodle restaurant.

Schedule:
July 8th, 2020 – Wednesday | Busan Cinema Center (Indie Plus) | 19:00 pm
July 10th, 2020 – Friday | Busan Cinema Center (Indie Plus) | 19:00 pm

Trailer:

Our Lady of the Nile by Atiq Rahimi – Rwanda, Belgium, France | 2019 – 93 minutes

Rwanda, 1973. Young girls are sent to Our Lady of the Nile, a prestigious Catholic boarding school perched on a hill, where they are taught to become the Rwandan elite. With graduation on the horizon, they share the same dormitory, the same dreams and the same teenage concerns.

Schedule:
July 8th, 2020 – Wednesday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinema 2) | 13:00 pm
July 10th, 2020 – Friday | Busan Cinema Center (Hanuelyeon Theatre) | 19:00 pm

Trailer:

Phantom Owl Forest by Anu Aun – Estonia | 2018 – 91 minutes

A 10-year-old Eia, whose Christmas holiday is taking an unexpected turn, after being brought to a mysterious farm in rural South Estonia. She follows her heart to rescue an old primeval forest, helps two lovers to find each other, and is destined to unwrap her family’s well-kept secret.

Trailer:

The Wolves by Samuel Kishi Leopo – Mexico | 2019 – 94 minutes

Max and Leo moved from Mexico to USA with their mother Lucia. She says that they will live a better life now, but the kids are locked up in a shabby studio in the daytime and fast asleep before she returns home exhausted at night. On the walls they doodle cartoons of imaginary Ninja wolves; wolves that are strong, wolves that do not cry, wolves that shout “One ticket to Disney” in English.

Trailer:

Too Far Away by Sarah Winkenstette – Germany | 2019 – 89 minutes

12 year-old Ben, his only consolation is the Duren football team, for which he, a gifted striker, has already registered. but Ben’s family has to leave their home village because Niederkirchbach will soon be eaten up by a huge brown coal opencast mine. In his new school, however, Ben is stampd as being an outsider. The fact that the other ‘newcomer’, a Syrian refugee boy named Tariq, belongs even less to the class does not comfort Ben. One day, Ben, who secretly wants to go to his old village, discovers Tariq all alone at the train station everyday after football practice.

Trailer:

Veins of the World by Byambasuren Davaa – Germany, Mongolia | 2020 – 97 minutes

Amra’s father Erdene is the leader of the last nomads opposing global mining Companies digging for gold in the Mongolian steppe. After his father dies in a tragic car accident, Amra sets out to continue the fight in his father’s spirit – but with the tools of an 11-year-old boy.

Schedule:
July 10th, 2020 – Friday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinema 1) | 18:10 pm
July 13th, 2020 – Monday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinematheque) | 13:10 pm

Trailer:

Your Turn by Eliza Capai – Brazil | 2019 – 93 minutes

When Brazil’s economic and social crisis deepened in the last decade, students protested and occupied hundreds of schools, demanding better public education and the end of austerity measures. YOUR TURN depicts the Brazilian student movement from the protests of 2013 until the election of the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018.

Schedule:
July 10th, 2020 – Friday | Busan Cinema Center (Indie Plus) | 10:00 pm
July 13th, 2020 – Monday | Busan Cinema Center (Cinema 2) | 13:30 pm

Trailer: