MY FAMILY AND THE WOLF tells of a family secret, while in the brightly colored comic adaptation, MONICA AND FRIENDS – BONDS, a gang of children search for their dog. Competitive athlete, MADISON, discovers completely new sides of herself on a mountain bike, and the animation MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE fantasizes about happiness from a dog’s point of view. Fantasy also helps two brothers who come to the USA in, THE WOLVES. In the fable, THE PRINCE’S VOYAGE, a monkey prince discovers other worlds, and FORWARD documents the efforts of brave children worldwide. 

In MY BROTHER CHASES DINOSAURS, teenager Jack is ashamed of his brother, Gio, who has Down syndrome. But Gio belongs to Jack, just as femininity belongs to the influencer ALICE JÚNIOR, although many don’t see her that way. In the documentary GLITTER & DUST, four girls take the bull by the horns at the rodeo. YOUNG JULIETTE accepts all challenges: beauty ideals, puberty, and being in love. In the documentary IN MY BLOOD IT RUNS, Dujuan simply wants to be an Aborigine and gets into trouble because of this. Daniel’s vacations in DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER could really rock. But how is this possible while sitting around with the most boring mother in the world? Hanging out without a plan is what the youngsters in ABOUT THAT LIFE celebrate while they believe the world belongs to them. OUR LADY OF THE NILE looks back vividly on a boarding school for girls in Rwanda in 1973. 

Short films, all of them German premieres, offer the perfect introduction to the diversity of the medium in carefully curated programs for different age groups. Captivating short stories about friendship and family from Israel and Greece, offbeat animation from Lithuania, youthful attitudes to life in France and Slovakia, and fairy-tale stories from the Czech Republic, everything is represented – except boredom.