20th MICHEL Children and youth filmf estival announces first films
Between adventure and lightness
09. August 2022
The first films of the 20th MICHEL Kinder und Jugend Filmfest have been announced: Cinema fans between the ages of four and 16 are invited to discover summer films around the themes of friendship, courage and identity. Among them, the opening film Lucy Wanted, which celebrated its world premiere at one of the most important international children’s film festivals in Zlín, Czech Republic.
»Our MICHEL Children and Youth Film Festival this year is characterised by adventure and lightness, in complicated and upsetting times. In addition to our international and German films, we are showing the series for minis and two new detective stories by The Peppercorns. The themes of the festival films are multi-layered and offer cross-generational opportunities to exchange ideas and empathise with different perspectives,« says Steffi Falk, director of the MICHEL Children and Youth Film Festival.
Between strawberry ice cream and a bank robbery: After the ice cream machine in the family ice cream parlour breaks down, Lucy hatches a diabolical plan to save her family from financial ruin. Director Till Endemann, last in cinemas in 2010 with Vater Morgana, opens the MICHEL Children and Youth Film Festival on 30 September with his first children’s feature film Lucy Wanted. The bittersweet family comedy, starring Esther Schweins, Bettina Lamprecht and Kostja Ullmann among others, questions the classic thinking of good and evil.
Themes such as identity, success and loneliness are dealt with in the German documentary One in a Million by Joya Thome. Here, the story of two girls who at first glance appear to be dissimilar is thematised: While the US gymnast Whitney Bjerken shares her life on social media, the German Yara follows her on YouTube and participates in her life from afar. As in her previous film Queen of Niendorf, which was screened at the MICHEL Kinder und Jugend Filmfest in 2017, Joya Thome shows girls who determine their own path.
Violetta is not exactly what you would call a model fairy. Her adventures in the human world with her friend Maxie are told in the animated film My Fairy Troublemaker by director Caroline Origer. The feature film debut of the Luxembourg director will be screened out of competition.
Also out of competition, the MICHEL Kinder und Jugend Filmfest presents two new episodes of The Peppercorns, with a new cast. In their first cases, the 13th generation of the detective gang must directly help the police with an unsolved cold case and convict apparent drug smugglers. The director is Andrea Katzenberger, who has already directed more than 60 episodes of Pfefferkörner.
The animation film Oink by Dutch director Mascha Halberstad will close the programme. In addition to the themes of vegetarianism, the film also focuses on family togetherness. Nine-year-old Babs and her piglet Oink have to learn that the supposed bad guys are not always the bad guys and the seemingly good guys are not always the good guys.
The 20th MICHEL Children and Youth Film Festival will take place from 30 September to 5 October 2022. The films in the competition can win the MICHEL Film Prize worth 5,000 euros, which this year is provided by the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung and von Berlichingen & Partner Steuerberatungsgesellschaft and will be awarded on 5 October by the MICHEL jury consisting of children and young people.
At MICHEL Filmfest all films will be shown in their original version and will be dubbed live in German by actresses in the cinema.
The MICHEL Children and Youth Film Festival was founded in 2003 by festival director Albert Wiederspiel and has been a permanent programme section at FILMFEST HAMBURG ever since.
Advance tickets for the MICHEL will be on sale from 15 September at the Levantehaus and at the festival cinemas Abaton, Metropolis, Passage and the Studio-Kino
