The DOK.fest Award of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit is sponsored by B.O.A Videofilmkunst and is endowed with 3,000 euros. It honours films across all series that make the perspective of children and young people visible and tangible in a remarkable way.

The Nominees

A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS
Denmark/Sweden/Finland/Ukraine 2022, Simon Lereng Wilmont, 87 min.

War, homelessness and alcoholism blight families in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk. Some of the city’s offspring end up in a home where tenacious, kind-hearted social workers take care to ensure that they can regain hope. They have nine months – then the courts decide the children’s future.

WINNER:

CHILDREN OF THE MIST
Vietnam 2021, Ha Le Diem, 90 min.

While their parents are drunk most of the time, the daughters of the Hmong in North Vietnam grow up with lipstick, social media and the tradition that someday they will be kidnapped by the boy who desires them. Even though child marriage is illegal, a daughter’s brief flirtation can have serious consequences for their family.

IF YOU ARE A MAN
France/Burkina Faso 2022, Simon Panay, 76 min.

Opio sings and laughs to tame his fear as he rappels down into the depths of the "Perkoa" gold mine in his home country of Burkina Faso for the first time. With patience and discipline, the strong-willed boy tries to extract gold from a sack full of stones during the dangerous work in the depths in order to realise his dream: Opio wants to go to school.

IMAD'S CHILDHOOD
Sweden/Latvia 2021, Zahavi Sanjavi, 78 min.

Imad doesn't like toys; he likes weapons and decapitated dogs. Imad is four and a half years old. More than two years ago, his family was captured by the IS. After they are set free, the film shows the mother’s despair at Imad’s aggressive behaviour. She seeks help, in order to reconnect with her son: he should be allowed to be a child again.

KALLE KOSMONAUT
Germany 2022, Tine Kugler and Günther Kurth, 98 min.

Kalle wants to achieve something. He doesn’t want to be “a ghetto kid, a kid who just messes up and takes drugs…” But life does not treat him kindly. Convicted of assault at the age of 16 – this changes everything. The film follows Kalle through the trials and tribulations of his adolescence, observing him over a period of 10 years.

LEJOS DE CASA
Mexico 2022, Carlos Hernández Vázquez, 81 min.

Every year thousands of minors from Latin America send asylum applications to the USA. The children and young people often travel long distances unaccompanied across the continent only to wait for months for a decision in one of the Mexican border towns. A hostel in Tijuana, run by a dedicated team, offers them care and support.

THE ONE WHO RUNS AWAY IS THE GHOST
Germany/China 2021, Qinyuan Lei, 72 min.

In fairy tales, it's the forest, populated by fairies, ghosts and mythical creatures. Here it is an electronics market: the imagination of two siblings who grow up here enchants the supposedly disdainful world of beeping, blinking vending machines in a Chinese skyscraper. A sentimental-poetic journey of the filmmaker into (her own) childhood.

Jury of DOK.fest Award of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit 2022

We are pleased to introduce the jury that will select the winner of the DOK.fest Award of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit.