A young boy struggles with life on the streets of Vancouver's dangerous and soul-consuming lower East side.
Social & External
The people behind it
Sean Mathieson
Paul
Yolanda Jessel
Wendy
Craig March
Cop
David Beairsto
Club Owner
Broadus Mattison
Bouncer
Leanne Merrett
Paul's Mother
Chris Olson
Fighting Boyfriend
Juliana Wimbles
Fighting Girlfriend
Tiera Skovbye
Underage Kid #1
Devon Busswood
Underage Kid #2
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
A searing legal drama that centers on a highly credentialed child psychologist whose life is shattered when he's accused of sexually assaulting a young boy he's been treating.
Rachid is a young man who survives in Morroco boxing in clandestine fights in order to save enough money with which to pay a smuggler, and be able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar with his two friends.
A love story of a 17 year old punk-rocker and a 15 year old runaway girl.
The unusual friendship between a German embassy employee and a twelve-year-old refugee girl helps both of them rediscover their joy in life, but also brings with it suspicion, corruption and violence.
An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.
Gerardo is a young man with limited financial resources who works as a public speaker in various squares and streets of Lima. One day, after work, his boss offers him a job that goes against his moral principles, forcing him to choose between accepting the job and betraying his ideals, or refusing it and facing severe financial hardship.
In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.
BIRD IN THE SKY is a gritty, poetic tale of a young man’s spiritual struggle on the streets of New York City. Rob has been given a second chance to right the wrongs of his street-wise past; he must perform a miracle to be saved. His fate lies in his love for a young woman, Kay, who is coping with the loss of her child.
An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.
According to the story, the heroes of the backyard are "Impression from the moment when a child realizes that childhood is transient". The scriptwriters combined episodes in the film on Merima's two works and placed events in an unspecified town after the wars. Costumes and sculptures refer to the wooden houses of the 1940s and 1950s. The venues included Suomenlinna and the Ruiskumestari House in Helsinki Kruununhaa. The backyard heroes were filmed for 16mm film originally as a television movie , but also taken to theatrical release.
Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.
From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.
Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?
Karesz has been raised in an institution, his mother has a new family, and her husband does not tolerate that she meets her first-born son. Karesz tramps, joining up with his casual pals he washes the windscreens of cars, sells newspapers; sometimes they steal, or break into houses if hired.
A well-bred young English lad living in lower Manhattan tries to gain acceptance from his not-so-well-bred peers at school.
Hidayet Usta is a shoemaker in his early 80s who has made a living repairing shoes. Having separated from his wife years ago and with a strained relationship with his children, Hidayet lives alone, but contentedly in his own world.
Grace is a homeless teenager. She befriends an unemployed carpenter and he invites her to share his flat. She moves in and to her surprise a delicate relationship develops. He helps her repair her shattered self-esteem and she begins to feel loved and secure. But then she discovers his secret - he tells her he is Jesus Christ.
During the British Raj, the orphan of a British soldier poses as a Hindu and is torn between his loyalty to a Buddhist mystic and aiding the English secret service.
Nick Romano lives in a poor tenement building on the south side of Chicago with his well-meaning but drug-addicted mother, Nellie. She encourages him to pursue his piano-playing talent in hopes that it will bring him a better life. Nellie's neighbors, like the alcoholic ex-lawyer who secretly loves her, help her in keeping Nick away from Louie, the resident drug dealer. But a chance meeting between Nick and Louie could change things forever.
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
The most feared battle emcee in the early 1980s in Queens, New York, was a fierce teenager from the Queensbridge projects. At the age of 14, Roxanne Shanté was well on her way to becoming a hip-hop legend, as she hustled to provide for her family while defending herself from the dangers of the street.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
