Youth film

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In the broader sense, a youth film is a feature , documentary or short film that is primarily aimed at young people  - that is, people in the phase of life between the onset of puberty and adulthood  . Youth films in the narrower sense have youthful main characters who allow viewers of the same age to identify more or less comprehensively , and deal with topics that play a special role in the lives of young people, e.g. emotional , sexual and physical growing up, gradual detachment from parents , Friendship and first love . The main difference between the two genres can be seen in the fact that only youth films in the narrower sense convey specifically youthful experiences.

definition

target group

In the 1950s to 1970s, youth films were designed for an age group of fifteen to about twenty years. Due to the earlier onset of puberty, the age group then shifted to around twelve to eighteen years.

Plot and topics are conveyed in youth films in a way that corresponds to the living situation and the experience horizon of the target group. However, these can differ from one another depending on the production time and country. Young people in the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR had different experiences and socializations in the 1970s . The target group after the turn of the millennium developed completely different life plans than previous generations . The extent to which the life of young people in non-Western countries is comparable to that of theirs in Western countries can hardly be determined in an abstract manner. However, it can differ considerably in terms of cultural , social , economic and religious conditions.

Differentiation from children's films

The distinction between youth films and children's films turns out to be very difficult. This is especially true if the protagonists of the film are of the age at the beginning of puberty, as children and young people prefer films in which the characters are a little older than themselves. While it is with the presentation of the feature film Eve and Adam is a children's series , the fictional film is able to interest children as well as adolescents due to the older protagonists. In films like Pelle, der Eroberer (1987) or Mein Hund Skip (2000), the main characters are children, but the complexity of the topics addressed or the atmosphere conveyed can mostly only be recognized and processed by young people. In particular the Harry Potter series (since 2001), which, together with the books on which it is based (1997–2007), has accompanied a whole generation of children and young people around the world in their aging process (the protagonists are eleven at the beginning of the series and at the end of the series seventeen years old), has redefined the concepts of the distinction between youth and children's films.

Other definitional questions

The problem is the restriction of the term youth film in the narrower sense to films that deal with self-discovery, puberty conflicts, etc., if one tries to apply them to films from non-Western cultures (for example the Middle East or Latin America ). Although young people there are no less concerned with these issues, many of these films link their portrayal more clearly with a description of the social reality of their country.

Films for young people are not films in which young people and their age-specific concerns play a major role, but which are not aimed at allowing the audience to identify with the young characters. An example of this are the adaptations of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita by Stanley Kubrick ( Lolita , 1962) and Adrian Lyne , who made a remake in 1997 under the same title .

Some films that are aimed at a young audience are not approved by the film censorship or a self-censorship of the film industry (in Germany this is the FSK ) for the target group in question, depending on the country. The film distribution usually tries to get around this by shortening the films (e.g. when violence is explicitly portrayed in teenage horror films ) in order to be able to offer a "defused" version with a lower age rating in the corresponding countries. Sometimes the original versions with the higher age ratings are published on DVD .

Youth film genres

Real film

Although the youth film is basically open to any genre , some have proven to be particularly suitable for conveying youth-relevant topics.

School or student films

Naturally, school films are almost always considered to be youth films, since schoolchildren are usually young people (examples: Crazy , Schule , both 2000). Films that teach students and teachers to pull themselves together include Stand and Deliver (1988), starring Edward James Olmos ( Oscar nomination for "Best Actor"), and 2007 Freedom Writers starring Hilary Swank . Boarding school films include The Dead Poets Club , 1989 and Mona Lisa's smile (2003). If the focus is on an adult main character (writer in Die Feuerzangenbowle , 1944, journalist in Ungeküsst , 1999), young people mostly act as secondary characters , so that a youth film cannot be assumed. The Principal - One Against All (1987) is an example of a whole series of pure action films in which an outsider (here: James Belushi ) comes to a school to clear up the grievances on site.

Sports films

The sports film is one of the classic motifs of mostly American works . When it comes to school sports, the boundaries to school films are rather fluid. A group of different characters has to come together to achieve success in a team sport and learn to put individual interests aside. Victory is usually understood as an opportunity for social advancement, which, for example, a sports scholarship at a university promises. As a result, the actors are often confronted with peer pressure or even corruption and manipulation . This is especially true since in the United States of college sports strong interests as associations, professional associations and betting enthusiasts is exposed.

Typical examples are films about football ( Against Any Rule , 2000) and basketball (1998: Game of Life ; 2005: Coach Carter ). Other sports films are not quite as common, but then mostly celebrate the individuality of the individual who realizes himself in sport. There have been successful films about dancing ( Save the Last Dance , 2001; Strictly Ballroom , 1993, by Baz Luhrmann ) or skateboarding ( Dogtown Boys , 2005). From ballet act Billy Elliot - I Will Dance (2000) from England and Robert Altman in 2003 incurred film The Company - The ensemble . Gymnastics is the sport that the actors in Rebel in sneakers (2006) practice. Girls play soccer in the British Kick it like Beckham (2002) or form a cheerleading team in Girls United (2000) . In addition, one of them gets into the boxing ring in Girlfight - On Your Own (2000) . A surfing competition is held in Blue Crush (2002).

German films in which sport is played can hardly be regarded as youth films (for example the boxing films Elefantenherz (2002) and Die Boxerin from 2005). FC Venus - Attack is the best defense (2006) is an example of football films in which the battle between the sexes is taken to extremes.

Ghetto films

The so-called ghetto and hood films represent a completely independent genre in the context of American youth films. They were particularly popular with European youth in the 1990s and spanned a range from drama to thriller and action films to comedy . Particularly outstanding productions of this genre are films such as Boyz n the Hood - Jungs im Viertel (1991), Zebrahead (1992), Blood In Blood Out (1993), Menace II Society (1993), Fresh (1994), Friday (1994) , Dangerous Minds (1995), 187 - A Deadly Number (1997) and American History X (1998) are scored.

The US production Beat Street from 1984 is an early example . This film, produced by Harry Belafonte , is said to have had a strong influence on the spread of hip-hop in the former GDR .

Historical film

Period films are intended to show their young audiences the living conditions at other times or in other countries by identifying them with main characters of the same age. Social grievances are often shown, as in the film adaptation of Charles Dickens ' Oliver Twist (2005). The various youth films about National Socialism such as Napola - Elite for the Führer (2004) or Sophie Scholl - The Last Days (2005) are also considered historical films , while other eras in Germany are hardly considered or interest.

One exception, however, is the film Was uses die Liebe in Denk (2004), which deals with a real event during the Weimar Republic . An American film like The Long Way of Natty Gann (1985) describes the era of the Depression in the 1930s. The Felix winner Pelle the Conqueror contrast, is about a boy who tested at the end of the 19th century with its working father of Sweden from the Danish island of Bornholm attracts.

Coming-of-Age Films

The term coming-of-age film (English: coming of age , dt. Adolescence , growing up) understands films whose youthful heroes are moved by fundamentally human questions. On the one hand, the first contact with such questions for young people is something that is typical of their age, on the other hand, such motives are also interesting for adults who were confronted with relevant questions even at this age. The young people's feelings are particularly intensified by the initial processing. In Goodbye, Children from 1987, Louis Malle remembers his friendship with a Jew hidden from the Nazis. The focus of the Brazilian drama City of God (2002), which received several Oscar nominations , is life in the favelas and the efforts of a teenage photographer not to be drawn into the criminal machinations of his friends. With these films, it is difficult to draw the line between works expressly conceived as youth films or films aimed more at adults. The same applies to Kids (1995), Ken Park (2002) or Thirteen ( 2003).

This category also includes films in which directors, screenwriters or writers whose works are made into a film reproduce experiences from their own childhood. Prime examples of this are American Graffiti (1973), Moonlight Mile (2002) or The Squid and the Whale (2005). The Time of Youth (1998) is the film adaptation of the memories of Kaylie Jones , the daughter of James Jones .

Also Ronja (1984) includes coming-of-age elements.

Documentation

Sometimes documentaries can also be of interest to young people if they depict the reality of their lives or, on the contrary, give them access to a completely alien reality that is normally hidden in feature films. This is how Rhythm Is It! (2004) from a project of the Berliner Philharmoniker , which performed the ballet to Igor Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps with 250 students from “problem schools”, thereby giving them self-confidence and access to previously unimagined abilities. In the film Trip to Asia (2008) , the audience can see how young people prove their worth during a global tour of the Philharmonic and their maturity , in which the focus is on those musicians who are traveling for the first time and who are constantly exposed to the observation and control of others and are only accepted if they perform well.

Prinzessinnenbad (2007) depicts the reality of today's youth in the big city , which shows three 15-year-old girls from Kreuzberg in their everyday lives and their efforts to find a place in life.

Viewers learn something about the life of young people in other parts of the world in Lost Children , who confronts the fate of child soldiers in northern Uganda, and Devil's Miner , both from 2005. There, a 14-year-old hardly has to live with his family through life-threatening work feed secured mine. Jesus Camp (2006) presents a rather unknown area of ​​youthful life in the USA, which depicts life in an evangelical summer camp in which children are religiously indoctrinated .

Sein und haben (2002) describes everyday life at a completely remote French village school, where all classes are taught in a single room. It not only presents a school concept that is barely represented in Germany, but also a reality of life that only appears to be old-fashioned, but which in fact opens up a glimpse of a happy childhood away from the big city.

A classic area of ​​documentary film also concerns the performance of music concerts, such as the 1970 film about the Woodstock Festival from 1969. Jim Jarmusch made a film in 1997 about Neil Young and his band Crazy Horses ( Year of the Horse ), Martin Scorsese about the Bob Dylan's first career phase ( No Direction Home - Bob Dylan , 2005). The hard rockers from Metallica had themselves filmed during the production of their album St. Anger in the same year and provided insight into the production process, but also the narrowly prevented collapse of the band due to addiction problems, mutual hostility and the exit of a band member ( Metallica - Some Kind of Monster ). The development of the hardcore punk scene in the USA is the focus of American Hardcore (2006).

Animation film

Cartoons were considered children's films in Europe and the United States until the 1990s. This view went back mainly to the Walt Disney films, although these films also interested a great many young people well into the 1970s. In addition, some Disney films, such as B. Bambi (1942) and especially Taran und der Zauberkessel (1985), not necessarily suitable for very young children because of their slightly gloomy atmosphere.

In addition to the Disney films, animated films such as Yellow Submarine , Watership Down (1978), When the Wind blows (1986), The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) and Felidae (1994) were made, which were aimed more at young people than at younger children. The black and white film Persepolis from France, published in 2007, portrayed the childhood and youth of a young Iranian woman and was based on the autobiographical comics Marjane Satrapis , who was forced to flee into exile and separated from her parents after the Islamic revolution in 1978/1979.

The Japanese Animese offer a wide range of film genres. You can also find films for young people there. These include, for example, Nausicaä from the Valley of the Wind (1984) and the later studio Ghibli films Princess Mononoke 1997 or Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - all by Hayao Miyazaki .

The opinion of whether an animated film is suitable for children or only for young people varies widely in different countries. The 1988 film drama The Last Fireflies shows the fate of a teenager and his little sister who simply starved to death at the end of the Second World War . It is approved by the FSK for children from 6 years of age - in many other countries, however, the film has an age rating of around 12 years.

The youth film in German-speaking countries

Germany

Weimar Republic

The youth film did not yet play a significant role in the Weimar Republic . Nevertheless, the time produced some films, such as Young Blood (1926), in which a country schoolboy falls in love with an actress in the big city, or Primanerliebe (1927), which deals with illicit love in boarding school. The film Girls in Uniform (1931), which is about a young girl who seeks support from a teacher in a strict Prussian boarding school, was particularly successful .

National Socialism

The youth was a target group that was particularly sought after by the National Socialists . The Hitler Youth held youth film lessons since 1934 , but mostly propaganda films were shown there, which were also intended for adult viewers.

See:

Occupation 1945–1949

The youth film 1-2-3 Corona , shot in shattered Berlin in 1947 , which has optimistic and cheerful features, shows how two youth gangs set themselves a task that frees them from their existence.

GDR

Coming to terms with National Socialism was an important topic in GDR youth films, for example in You called it Amigo (1958). The film is about a boy who hides a political prisoner in 1939 and therefore ends up in a concentration camp himself.

In the 1970s, significant changes in GDR youth films became apparent. The view of everyday life in the GDR became socially more precise, for example for … damn, I am an adult (1974). The 15-year-old leading actor loses his home village because it has to give way to the opencast mine .

Especially in the 1980s up to the end of the GDR, films were made that realistically portrayed the life situation of young people in the GDR. These include Island of the Swans (1983) and I love Victor . A particular success is Sieben Freckersprossen , who showed their first love in a typical situation (here in the holiday camp) for the GDR and dared to use a critical undertone. The film Forbidden Love also takes a critical look at growing up and how adults react to it.

The life situation of children and young people in the GDR was also shown in documentary films. In the long-term study Die Kinder von Golzow (1961–1984), the individual life stories of the protagonists (born 1953–1955) were documented over many years. The documentation was continued in the reunified Germany (1992-2008). At the latest since the film " Anmutet nicht sparet" from 1979/1980, in which the youngest participant is 23 years old, one can no longer speak of youth films in the narrow sense .

Federal Republic of Germany - 1945 to 1989

In post-war Germany, films with young people hardly conveyed a realistic attitude towards life among young people. Typical for this are, for example, the Immenhof films , the drama films and the music films with Peter Alexander or Roy Black .

Die Halbstarken (1956), a psychologically differentiated juvenile crime film against the background of the German economic miracle, which was clearly inspired by American models like Die Wilden or ... because they don't know what they are doing , is therefore a remarkable exception. The same applies to Bernhard Wickis Anti-war drama Die Brücke (1959), in which some young peopleare supposed to defend a strategically completely unimportant bridgeas cannon fodder in the last days of the Second World War .

It wasn't until Hark Bohm that a director was found who started making films for young people on a regular basis again from the 1970s onwards. In his works he showed realistic life situations of the respective time. Examples are North Sea is Mordsee (1975), Moritz, liebe Moritz (1977) and Yasemin (1988). In the latter, the life of the second generation of Turkish immigrants who were born in Germany was also described for the first time.

A very well-known youth film from the 1980s was made in 1981 with the adaptation of Christiane F. - We Children from Zoo Station . This film tells the true story of the 15-year-old drug addict prostitute Christiane F. One of the low points of West German youth films, on the other hand, was Der Formel Eins Film in 1985 , which was aimed at viewers of the music show of the same name.

Germany after reunification

After the commercially very successful American film American Pie (1999), a number of equally successful German films were made about and for young people of a similar style. The awakening of sexuality was used as an occasion for simple entertainment films, for example in Harte Jungs (2000) and Mädchen, Mädchen (2001). The spectrum ranges from clique films such as Schule (2000), coming-of-age stories such as nothing to regret (2001) and time panoramas such as wasting your youth (2003), as well as Crazy (2000) or summer storm . In this way young actors like Daniel Brühl , Tom Schilling , Robert Stadlober , Jessica Schwarz and Julia Hummer were able to establish themselves.

Charming humor was provided by Nach Fünf im Urwald (1995) with Franka Potente , Sönke Wortmanns Kleine Haie and Das Leben ist ein Baustelle with Jürgen Vogel and Christiane Paul , in which young people can be observed in search of their place in life. In Paul is dead (2000), a Beatles- loving teenager in the 1970s uncovered the alleged death of Paul McCartney and his replacement by a doppelganger.

The films Fickende Fisch (2002) and Kroko (2004) also describe young people's search for their own personality in a credible and sensitive manner . Despite receiving various awards, these films were denied success with audiences. In general, in reunified Germany, more serious TV films are being produced with young people or for young people. Public television broadcasters in particular offer young filmmakers the opportunity to realize their own visions. Exemplary here is The Little TV Game , in the series of which films such as Kombat Sixteen , Class Trip , Bungalow , Storno or Mein Stern were made, which are characterized by a particularly successful portrayal of the protagonists' attitude towards life. In terms of form and content, these works are to be regarded as independent films .

Other notable youth films are Rieke's Love (2001), about teenagers on their way to professional figure skating careers, and Königskinder (2003), which tells the story of an unintentionally pregnant minor. Delphinsommer (2004) and Requiem (2006) deal with the effects of religious fanaticism .

Another film that deals with a young person's social problems is Escalator Down (2005), a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Hans-Georg Noack . A special feature of this film is the fact that the director, the producers and the scriptwriters themselves are all still young people.

A number of films dealt with the topic of growing up in the GDR. In 1977 the television film Raus aus der Haut (1997) is set, in which two students kidnap their school director who is loyal to the line when he causes them trouble. Wie Feuer und Flamme (2001) describes the love affair between a girl from the West and a punk in the East, Jana and Jan (1992) of two inmates of a GDR youth prison shortly before the fall of the Wall. The film Sonnenallee (1999), on the other hand, shows the life of young people in East Berlin in a humorous way. Forget America (2000) revolves around the longings of young people who are planning their escape from the apparently oppressive surroundings of East Germany.

Films about life under National Socialism include Hitler Youth Salomon (1990) and Das Heimweh des Walerjàn Wrobel (1991), based on an authentic case , a drama about a Polish youth who was abducted to Germany for forced labor and here because of a minor offense was sentenced to death. In the end come tourists described the time in 2007 of a German civilian service worker in Auschwitz , who, after meeting a young woman, also got to know the better side of life in the city. The subject of right-wing radicalism was also dealt with comedically in 2007 in Leroy , in which a black teenager falls in love with a young woman whose family are all right-wing radicals. The controversial film Die Welle (2008) by Dennis Gansel describes an experiment ( actually carried out in the USA ) by a teacher in which he and the students found a fascist movement that quickly gets out of hand.

More and more films are being made about the coexistence of different cultures in Germany. Geschwister - Kardeşler (1996) is about three siblings of Turkish origin in Berlin, whose lives take different developments. In the comedy Kebab Connection (2004), on whose screenplay Fatih Akin co-wrote, a young German-Turk from Hamburg tries to make the first German Kung Fu film.

A kind of Bavarian homeland film is the surprise hit Who dies earlier is longer dead from 2006, in which an 11-year-old boy tries to save his soul because he believes he is responsible for his mother's death. In 2007 the same director Marcus H. Rosenmüller started a trilogy about the life of young people in Bavaria and their problems growing up with Best Time .

The critically acclaimed film adaptation of the thriller drama Knallhart (2005/2006) by Detlev Buck tells the story of 15-year-old Michael, who has to assert himself against violent youth gangs in a Berlin ghetto and begins to make a criminal career as an errand boy for the drug mafia. The intrusion of a young person of Turkish origin into the life of a middle-class family was the subject of the television film Wut in 2005 , which caused heated discussions and special broadcasts when it was broadcast, but also won the renowned Adolf Grimme Prize in 2007 .

The day Bobby Ewing died , the Chernobyl nuclear power plant also exploded. Shortly before that, a youngster moved with his mother to a commune in the countryside and was confronted with the hippie and anti-nuclear power movement, which in the 2005 film gave rise to strange events. The film told the story of England! of a young Ukrainian soldier who stranded in Germany, although he would like to go to England one day before his death, which was inevitable due to radiation. The film Die Wolke (2006) is about the effects of a (fictitious) nuclear accident in Germany.

In 2008 the fantasy film Krabat was released , with David Kross in the lead role, and directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner .

Austria

Most of the youth films from Austria are youth films in the broader sense . For example, a Queen's Girl Years (1954), which is about the love of England's young Queen Victoria for Prince Albert of Saxony. But youth films in the narrower sense were also produced in Austria, such as Adventure of a Summer (1973), which is about young people at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. -Monarchy goes. In Herzklopfen (1984) the passionate love affair between an apprentice and a schoolgirl is told.

Benny's video (1992) from Austria is considered one of the most controversial European films about young people . The drama portrays a pubescent 13-year-old neglected by his parents, who loses all sense of reality through video films and his own video camera and who kills a girl of the same age invited to his home for his hobby without any emotion.

Lovely Rita (2001) is a disturbing drama about a 15-year-old who is unpopular in her school and finds no understanding from her parents either. After an unsuccessful striving for recognition and security, their actions culminate in an excessive act of violence.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, especially in the 1970s, committed youth films were made, such as Fluchtgefahr (1974), which is about a young person who is caught breaking and entering and is locked up as a recidivist. In Small cold even in summer (1978) is about four Swiss teenagers who get into a vicious cycle of crime and drugs.

As a co-producer, Switzerland participated in some youth films; this includes, for example, Le Cri du Lézard (1990), which deals with young outliers. In Emporte-moi - Take Me Out (1999) is about a 13-year old girl who runs away from his asocial family to the "ideal" make-believe world of movies. Anna Wunder (2000) tells the story of the young Anna who runs away from her mother in search of her father.

The youth film in other countries

(Note: The countries are in alphabetical order.)

Western countries

In general, the tendency can be observed that youth films in the narrower sense , i.e. films that encourage young people to confront their own growing up and think differently about themselves, have far more favorable conditions of production and reception in liberal, democratic societies than in authoritarian ones Societies.

Australia and New Zealand

In Heavenly Creatures (1994), The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson tells of an authentic case in New Zealand in 1954 when two young girls murdered the mother of one. Also made in 1994, the comedy Muriel's Wedding depicts the struggle of an unpopular and chubby girl for social recognition. A recent Australian award-winning youth drama is Somersault - Like Perfume in the Air (2004), in which a 16-year-old's hunger for love and sex ends in frustration and violence. December Boys (2007) is a drama set in Australia in the 1950s about four orphans whose friendship is in danger when a couple tries to take in a boy and three of them compete. It is the first major film with Daniel Radcliffe outside of the Harry Potter series.

France

French youth films have a long tradition. An example of this is the youth thriller Mystery of St. Agil (1938). In 1949, Jacques Becker's film Jugend von heute observed young people at the start of a life full of challenges that they had to overcome. In the 1950s, committed youth films such as Angels of the Thugs (1953) were made. It is about disputes among a group of "thugs". The love drama Awakening Hearts (1954) is about young people who still feel too young for love. The War of the Buttons from 1962 is a satirical youth film about the rivalry between the boys of two villages.

In the wake of the fashion wave of drumming films in the 1980s, France also produced some such films, such as Congratulations ... stayed seated again (1980) or Bring the boys (1984). A commercially very successful film, which also addresses the emotional world of young people, was La Boum - Die Fete (1980) and its sequels La Boum 2 - Die Fete geht weiter (1982); both with Sophie Marceau .

The naughty girl goes through the gradual transition from childhood to growing up during a summer. The screenplay is based on a script by François Truffaut and features the 1985 debut of Charlotte Gainsbourg . Her mother Jane Birkin falls in love with a 15-year-old in 1989 and spends time with Julien .

Am Großer Weg (1987) describes the summer of a child with relatives in the countryside who, through this visit, manage to come to terms with the death of their own son.

Sommer (1996) is one of the many rather low-story films by Éric Rohmer about young people, who mostly try to get clear about their character and their place in the world through various conversations and reflections. In summer, a student on vacation gets caught between three women who are interested in him and between whom he cannot decide. As early as 1967, Rohmer wonthe “Best Film for Young People” award at the Berlin International Film Festival for The Collector .

Danny's Test of Courage (1997) is about the friendship between a 12-year-old boy and an old man suffering from cancer. In Beschkempir - Changeling (1998) is about growing up an orphan boy in a Kyrgyz village.

Tea in the Harem of Archimedes (1985) and Hass (1999), on the other hand, deal with life in the French suburbs.

The experiences and confusions of young people from different European countries during their year abroad in Spain are the focus of Cédric Klapisch's L'auberge espagnole (2002).

A modern version of the classic La Boum is the Franco-German co-production French for Beginners (2006). Conceived as a romantic comedy, it describes the experiences of 16-year-old Hendrik, a German participant in a school exchange, on his first love trip to neighboring France.

The life of popular 17-year-old teenagers in Paris is shown in the youth comedy LOL (Laughing Out Loud) , in which the pretty main character Lola, known by everyone as Lol, fights against her parents and for “love”. Not profound but amusing.

A serious and harrowing film is Leila - The Daughter of Harki (2006) about an Algerian family who fled to France as a result of the Algerian War and had to live in a reception camp under degrading conditions. Only the eponymous daughter protests against the situation.

Water Lilies (2007) and Tomboy (2011) by Céline Sciamma deal with pubescent people's search for their sexual identity. For Water Lilies, Sciamma won the Prix Louis Delluc for the best first work; Tomboy has received awards at various international film festivals.

Great Britain and Ireland

In view of the large number of British books for young people, such as those by Roald Dahl , the number of film adaptations is rather small, since most of the adaptations are made by Hollywood. Even so, there have been some excellent literary adaptations , such as David Lean's adaptations of Dickens, Mysterious Inheritance (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). The Oliver Twist version of the year 2005 by Roman Polanski received much praise. 1947 and 2002 made films about Nicholas Nickleby . In 1963 Peter Brooks shot a version of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies (1963). The film adaptations of the first four Harry Potter novels have had and still have great commercial success . Harry is 11 years old at the beginning of the first novel and lives through his youth with his friends of the same age in the following stories until he has become a self-confident, young adult at the end of the series.

Two of the most controversial socially critical youth films came from Great Britain in the late 1960s and early 1970s: if ... (1968) is a bitterly angry treatise on British boarding school structures at the time, and Uhrwerk Orange (1971) is a brilliant satire on the therapy of the leader of a violent youth gang. One of the most important British youth dramas is Ken Loachs Kes from 1969, which shows a realistic picture of the social and family conditions in the working-class neighborhoods. The film Quadrophenia (1979) shows a completely different view of the 1960s . It tells the story of a young guy who gets caught in the power struggle between mods and rockers . In contrast, the 1985 musical adaptation of the time portrait Absolute Beginners , published in 1959, had a rather mythologizing effect. The autobiographical work Hope and Glory (1987) by John Boorman is about the story of a boy who grew up in London during the Second World War . The tragic comedy Wish You Were Here from 1987 takes us back to the 1950s , in which a 16-year-old provokes people with her language, her gestures and openly displayed sexuality.

Probably the most successful youth film of the 1990s was Trainspotting , a report on a group of drug addicts in Scotland , whose way of life he never condemns, but portrays it in a novel film aesthetic. The film is considered to have triggered another film boom in the UK.

The tricky subject of incest dealt with Neil Jordan in 1991 in Miracle - A Mysterious Summer and ten years later Tim Roth in The War Zone .

Committed youth films continued to be produced in Great Britain in the 2000s, such as The Miracles of Taliesin Jones (2000). It's about a boy who finds faith. Courage, Jimmy Grimble (2000) tells the story of an outsider who eventually becomes a steadfast supporter of his soccer team. In Danny Boyle's film adaptation of the LUCHS- winning children 's book Millions (2005), two brothers have to spend a million pounds sterling found in just one week shortly before a currency changeover .

The drama The Merciless Sisters (Ireland / GB 2002), based on documented events, describes the stories of suffering of so-called "fallen girls" who lived in the Magdalene Sisters' convents in Ireland in the middle of the 20th century, mostly with the consent of their parents some of them were imprisoned for life, humiliated and exploited through unpaid work.

In 2007, Hallam Foe - This Is My Story introduces a young man on the threshold of adulthood who does not trust his beloved to approach and begins to spy on her.

Even more than in other countries, the British film industry keeps picking up on certain issues that shape the social reality of Great Britain to this day. Since the mid-1980s, films have increasingly been devoted to the multiple problems of integrating immigrants into British society, in which the problems of generation are often highlighted. This trend was triggered by the films My Wonderful Laundromat (1985) and Sammy and Rosie Do It (1987) (both by Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi ). In 1999, the cultural conflict comedy East is East was created , which painted the brightly colored picture of a binational family (the father of the seven Khan kids is Pakistani and the mother British) in England in the early 1970s. Kick it like Beckham (2002) also chooses the comedy form to address similar problems in an Indian family.

Another classic theme of English films is the description of social problems in a country where economic difficulties are still associated with the term Thatcherism . So is Billy Elliot - I Will Dance (2000) from a 11-year-old who, against the will of his father's strict ballet dancer to escape the path laid down in unemployment will be and sees this as a means. Sweet Sixteen (2000), by director Ken Loach , who is known for his powerful social dramas, is about the problems of a disturbed family shaped by the unemployment of their parents .

In addition, many films deal with the effects of the Northern Ireland conflict , which are not expressly to be regarded as youth films. Nevertheless, young people in particular are drawn into these disputes and are therefore also acting characters. Cal (1984), for example, deals with the unhappy relationship between a young fellow traveler and the mother of a murdered Protestant policeman. The drama Mothers & Sons (1996), which won the European Film Award for “Best Young Film”, describes the struggle of mothers for the lives of their imprisoned sons who are on hunger strike.

Italy

Italy also has a long tradition of youth films. The episode film Children of Our Time (1952) is about offenses committed by teenage criminals in three different European countries. The sensitive production Friends for Life (1955) is about childhood friendships.

In the wake of the drama film wave, films such as Now it drives them with the drummer (1978) were made in Italy . A youth film that was particularly successful in the GDR was the love film Cinderella '80 (1984). This film was also released in Germany under the title Cinderella '87 (albeit with a different German dubbing).

A slightly more recent Italian youth film is Karate Rock (1990), which is about conflicts at a school. The movie The Giant Pumpkin (1993) is about a 13-year-old girl who suffers from epileptic seizures. In the kidnapping thriller I Have No Fear (2002) a boy discovers a child chained in a hole in the ground, which causes a rude awakening from carefree childhood days.

The awakening sexuality of adolescents is described in The Magic of Malèna (2000), in which a 13-year-old boy falls in love with the beautiful wife ( Monica Bellucci ) of a soldier fighting in North Africa, who seems inaccessible to him during the Second World War .

A particularly touching film is the award-winning drama My Son's Room (2001), in which the son of a family dies in an accident and the relatives have to come to terms with his death.

Japan

The mental and emotional processing of the atomic bombs plays a major role in Japanese films. Several youth films have also been made on this topic. For example children from Hiroshima (1952/53), the girl Toshiko (1979), teacher (1982) or children from Nagasaki (1983).

Japanese youth films are also devoted to other topics. From the comedy Young Mower (1953) - it is about young lovers at the hay harvest - to the film drama Young (1969). This film tells the story of a boy who is driven out of his childhood.

In the 1980s, other Japanese youth films came to Germany, such as Frei wie ein Vogel (1980). It is about sparrows that are shot in Japan. The Bear Catcher (1987), on the other hand, tells the relationship between a boy and his grandfather.

Sekai no Chūshin de, Ai wo Sakebu (2004) tellsa love story between a boy and agirl sufferingfrom leukemia , based on a bestseller by Kyōichi Katayama . Also a literary adaptation is Deep Love - Ayu no Monogatari (2004), which, among other things,deals withthe prostitution of young people in Japan. The documentary-style drama Nobody Knows (2004) is about the urban struggle forsurvival of four self-sufficient children whowere left in an apartmentby their wicked mother . The film adaptation of the manga series Nana was successful at the Japanese box office in 2005.

Canada

Lost and Delirious (2001) is a drama by director Léa Pool about love and loss.

In Saint Ralph (2004), a 14-year-old student at a Catholic school tried to win the Boston Marathon in 1954 , believing that a victory that would be a “miracle” would save his comatose mother.

The film CRAZY - Verrücktes Leben (2005) , which received eleven Genie Awards , is a Canadian tragic comedy that revolves around the five sons whose first letters make up the film title, the Beaulieu family and their chaotic relationship with their parents. Puberty, sex , drugs , rock 'n' roll and rebellion - the 1970s took their toll on everyone involved.

Whole New Thing (2005) turns out to be a clever comedy about a precocious 13-year-old who has previously been taught by his hippie parents and who is about to go to school for the first time and who upsets his entire environment .

Netherlands and Belgium

Children's films were produced relatively frequently in the Netherlands , while youth films from there were rather rare. Nevertheless, there were some committed youth films such as the film drama Messer (1960), which is about the puberty crisis of a 13-year-old boy. Spetters (1980) tells the story of three young people who try to emulate an idol with their motorcycles. The film Pickpocket (1995) is about a 12-year-old boy who is forced by two stronger boys to steal the handbags of older women.

The Flemish-Belgian satire Everyone is a star! (2000) was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film in 2001. In it, a fanatical father believes that his underage chubby daughter should definitely become a celebrated hit star - the kidnapping of a popular singer should help them.

The time travel comedy Kreuzzug in Jeans (2006) is an adventure story about the historically guaranteed crusade of children .

Russia

Since in the GDR as few films as possible from capitalist countries should be shown in the cinemas, films from “socialist brother countries” were dubbed in German. The vast majority of it was from the USSR because it had a large movie production.

In the beginning there were some politically motivated Russian films, such as Friendship (1948), Your Big Day (1958) or Flags on the Towers (1958). The majority, however, were non-political entertainment films such as The Scratch Brush (1957) or Dangerous Mission (1959). There have also been numerous film adaptations such as Fifteen-year-old Captain (1945), Towards Life (1952), Mystery of the Mountain Lake (1954) and the Story of a First Love (1957).

The trend in Russian youth film production continued into the 1960s. Other films were made that were supposed to have political influence on young people. Such as Army of the Wagtail (1964) or It Happened in the Enlightenment (1968).

The number of non-political entertainment films rose significantly more in the 1960s than before. Examples are Krosch's Adventure (1961), Come Tomorrow (1963), Football Captain ( 1963), Encounter with Tenderness (1967), Dubrawika (1967) or Little Runaways (1967). The latter was a Russian-Japanese co-production.

The Russian youth films of the 1970s abstained from all political indoctrination , but without denying the effects of the political system. In addition, they began to show a realistic image of youth. For example, in coming-of-age films like The Swans Fly Here (1973), The Fearless Ataman (1973) or I'm Already Grown Up (1974).

Numerous Russian youth films of the 1970s were period films, such as Encounter at the Old Mosque (1970), The Lost Expedition , Golden River (1976), Moving Childhood (1976), On Wolf's Track (1977), All About Kusmin (1978) or Story of a boy from Abkhazia (1978).

But other film genres were also shown in Russian youth films. For example the film dramas Time to Think for Love (1971) or Jirka Lets the Puppets Dance (1974). Love movies, for example, were hooray, we're on vacation! (1972), One Hundred Days After Childhood (1975), Kühne Träume (1975) or My Death is Klawa K.'s fault (1979).

In the 1980s, not so many Russian films were dubbed in German. Nevertheless, there were Russian youth films from various film genres. For example, Alert on the Coast (1981), Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn's Adventures (1982), Everyone Calls Me Talisman (1983), Messenger (1987), Arsonist (1988) or Little Vera (1988).

A more recent, laconically told Russian road movie that won an award at the “goEast” festival is the film Der Weg nach Koktebel (2003). An 11-year-old follows his father on foot from Moscow to the Black Sea , where they both want to start a new life with their aunt in Koktebel.

Scandinavia or Nordic countries

Scandinavia and the Nordic countries in general have a long tradition of children's and youth films. Films like My Life as a Dog (Sweden 1985) and Pelle, the Conqueror (Denmark 1987) won Oscars for Best Foreign Film . The Swede Lukas Moodysson is one of the best-known young directors and shot modern youth studies with Raus aus Åmål and Lilja 4-ever . In 2003, the film adaptation Evil of the autobiographical novel by Swedish crime writer Jan Guillou was nominated for an Oscar over his school years.

Scandinavian film can draw on a large number of books for young people, many of which have been made into literary films. Such as Die Zeit with Monika (1953), Girls in Dangerous Age (1956), I am Maria (1979), the story of Kalle and Reinert (1979), Junge im Baum (1981) or Under the Northern Lights (1985). Sofies Welt (1999), in which a 14-year-old schoolgirl is introduced to the world of philosophy by a fatherly friend, was very successful commercially .

The youth film has always been an important factor in Scandinavian film history. For example, when love awakens (1952) was written in the 1950s . This comedy is about primary school love in a mixed high school. In the drama It happened from hot childhood love (1952) is reported about a student love that is endangered by the illegitimate birth of a child. Violence Against Violence (1954) reports on juvenile delinquency in Sweden in the 1950s.

Here, too, many film genres found their implementation in youth films. For example in film dramas such as Neue (1955), Kinderwagen (1963), Lenk or The End of a Childhood (1975), Don't Look For Me (1982), Black Panthers - Rebels of Anger (1992) or Wild Angel (1997). In contrast, love films such as Once Upon a War (1966), A Swedish Love Story (1969) or No Love Like Our (1988) offered light entertainment . In the semi-documentary genre, youth films such as My Home is Copacabana (1965) were made. It is about the fate of orphaned street children in Rio de Janeiro .

Coming-of-age films are a very important topic in Scandinavian youth films. As part of the personality development of young people, they convey a realistic picture of the life situation. That is why such films are very numerous - such as Abseits (1979), So am I too (1980), Tree of Knowledge (1981), Twist and Shout - Rock'n'Roll and first love (1984), Street of Childhood ( 1986), Higher Than Heaven (1994), or Dreams Don't Grow on Trees (1996). In Frida - Heart in Hand (1991) a 13-year-old learns a few lessons about love. The Eye of the Eagle (Denmark 1996), on the other hand, is a flawless youth adventure that shows a king's son of the Middle Ages fighting his father's dangerous enemies. Schön ist die Jugendzeit ( Schön ist die Jugendzeit) (1995) tells of the love affair between a student and his teacher and won the most important Swedish film award with the Guldbagge .

Youth films continue to be made in the 2000s. For example Children of the Storm (2000), a documentary film about the life of 14-year-old schoolchildren. In Love in Tin Cans (2000) is the story of two Swedish orphans in the 1950s. The award-winning outsider ballad Nói Albínói (Iceland 2002) describes the aimless life of the highly intelligent 17-year-old loner Nói in the Icelandic province.

The coming-of-age comedy Popular Music from Vittula (Sweden / Finland 2004) is about the two friends Matti and Niila in the Roaring 60s and the arrival of rock 'n' roll in their previously boring village on the Swedish- Finnish border.

In 2004 the film The Color of Milk was shown in German cinemas, the focus of which was on the emotional chaos of three 12-year-old Norwegian girls who decided to be interested in boys from now on.

Spain

Coming from Spain , especially in the 1980s, some youth films were dubbed into German, such as Berta's Motive (1983). It is about the experiences of a girl in the desolate landscape of Castile . The drama Red-haired Teo (1985) tells the story of the son of a Madrid judge and his dying grandfather. In 27 hours (1986) 27 hours from the life of an 18-year-old Basque youth and his friends are shown. Another portrait of adolescent life is Most Beautiful Years of Life (1989). In addition, literary adaptations such as Dickkopf (1982) or Liebe Valentina (1982) were made.

A nested drama triggered by a coming-out in a Catholic boarding school in the 1960s, describes Pedro Almodóvar in Bad Education - Bad Education (2003).

But even in the 2000s, youth films in the broader sense continued to be made, such as The Devil's Backbone (2001). This thriller is about a dark secret in a completely remote orphanage during the Spanish Civil War . Planta 4ª (2003) reports on adolescents suffering from cancer who try to escape from a hospital.

United States

Silent film era until the 1950s

American youth films reflect, more than other films, social developments and the crisis in Hollywood cinema. Originally, the term “youth film” did not even exist, since films were considered entertainment for all age groups in the early days of the film industry and distinctions according to target groups or age ratings were only introduced later.

The literary adaptation Children on the Streets (1933) is an early youth film . It is about young people during the American economic crisis.

Teufelskerle from 1938 is an example of how young people were treated in feature films at the time. It tells the true story of a pastor ( Oscar for Spencer Tracy ) who sets up a home for socially disadvantaged young people in order to save them from prison. The adult is at the center of the plot, his protégés are only supporting actors.

Even in post-war cinema, a significant part of American post-war cinema only includes supposed children's and youth films such as Black Beauty (1946), Black Gold (1947) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Although these often won Oscar nominations or awards, young people and their problems were hardly or not at all discussed.

As a result, realistic films of youthful behavior and their feelings were often viewed as a provocation , especially since the adolescents often reacted with violence to their parents' incomprehension: Der Wilde (1953); ... because they don't know what they are doing and The Saat der Kraft (1955) are part of it. Their leading actors Marlon Brando and James Dean became idols of the young audience who recognized themselves in them. Attempts to bind young people to Hollywood through pleasing singing films with Elvis Presley failed because the audience was looking for other heroes such as Brando , Steve McQueen or Paul Newman .

The literary adaptations of books for young people made in the 1950s include Young Luck in April (1957) and The Secret of the Enchanted Cave (1959).

1960s to 1970s

In the 1960s, a new generation of young people followed, who saw, among others, The Graduation Examination (1967) or Easy Rider (1969). The first-mentioned film is also considered a trigger for pop culture and showed the adolescents more confused, insecure and disinterested than rebellious and angry.

Later the " New Hollywood " developed, a realistic cinema founded by young filmmakers, at which the studio system of old Hollywood broke up. Examples of this development were The Last Show (1971) and American Graffiti (1973), in which George Lucas was the first director to relocate the plot of a youth film to his own childhood and thus won over the young people of 1973 as viewers as well as those who were currently watching the plot (1960s) were themselves teenagers.

Otherwise, youth films were rather rare: in 1973, Jeremy was one of the few love films that are set among young people. I never promised you a rose garden described in 1977 - based on a true case - a 2-year hospital stay of a 16-year-old after her suicide attempt.

1977 sparked Saturday Night Fever from the Disco Fever before Jaws and Star Wars , the Blockbuster - cinema established that certain cinema program for young people over the next decades.

1980s

The most successful youth films of the 1980s hardly generated any social impetus. They were largely shaped by the successes of Steven Spielberg , George Lucas and John Hughes . While the first two directors mainly established action films for young people ( Back to the Future , Gremlins - Little Monsters , The Goonies , Willow , etc.), Hughes shot comedies about schoolchildren, in which problems such as the development of individuality, peer pressure or Loneliness were thematized ( The Breakfast Club , Ferris makes blue , Pretty in Pink ), but these were always resolved with a happy ending. St. Elmo's Fire and The Secret of My Success also belong in this category . I Think I'm Standing in the Woods (1982) was the role model for many US student comedies.

Dance and music films were able to attract more viewers again ( Flashdance , Footloose , Fame - The Path to Fame , Dirty Dancing ). This includes the 1960s comedy Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990), a 1950s parody of West Side Story (starring Johnny Depp ), both by John Waters .

In addition, there were also a number of films that emerged from the independent scene and opposed Hollywood conservatism in terms of content and form : Baby It's You (1984) by John Sayles , Nola Darling ( Spike Lee ) and Jim Jarmusch's Stranger than Paradise showed that there was still a backlash against the mainstream standard. In 1989 Powwow Highway examines the current situation of Indians in modern America. Reise zur Insel der Geister (1988) deals with young people's conflict between tradition and modernity. The Knife on the Shore (1986) with Keanu Reeves deals with the consequences of a murder among young people. Stand and Deliever about the problems of a teacher at a school in Latino - environment in 1988 was one of the first serious film, which was located in this area.

Francis Ford Coppola set standards with regard to the protection of young actors with the two commissioned works Die Outsider and Rumble Fish . Alan Parker's film Birdy (1984) describes the friendship between two young people in the face of traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War. In Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Sergio Leone devotes more than an hour to the adolescence of the future adversaries. Steven Spielberg filmed in 1987 in his second "serious" film Empire of the Sun to semi-autobiophischen novel by JG Ballard about the experiences of a 11-year-olds during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1941. The Taps is (1981) the seductiveness of young people in the face of an apparent order and misunderstood concepts of honor. Next to Timothy Hutton , who was the youngest actor to win an Oscar for A Just Normal Family in 1980, played Sean Penn and Tom Cruise , whose 1986 film Top Gun was conceived as a commercial for the military intended especially for young men.

1990s

The youth films of the 1990s began to generate increased social impulses. The topic of AIDS is documented in the drama Kids (1995). It is about the sexual carelessness of young people, which results in a girl becoming infected with HIV and thereby isolating herself within her clique. In Gilbert Grape - Somewhere in Iowa (1993) a young American looks for space for his own life in addition to caring for his mother and disabled brother. This was followed by the films The Mighty (1998), which is about the magical dream journey of two unequal friends and in which topics such as disability and social exclusion are thematized, and Rushmore (1998), an intelligent tragicomedy in the high school milieu. In the critically acclaimed independent film Gas Food Lodging (1992), two sisters live with their mother in a trailer park in the New Mexico desert and dream of breaking out of their boring existence.

Youth memories from the 1960s showed Our World Was a Beautiful Lie in 1994 and This Boy's Life in 1995 . The focus is always on the conflict with (step) fathers who tied their children to themselves through manipulation and violence and whose position of power was only broken towards the end of an unhappy youth. The film adaptation of the diaries of Jim Carroll - In the Streets of New York , which report on substance abuse, self-destruction and violence - were relocated to the present in the 1995 film version. The film was later accused of having inspired the gunmen of the Littleton school massacre through a dream sequence of the main character .

Various films were also set in the 1970s. While Now and Then - Damals und heute (1995) and My Girl (1991) and its sequel are more likely to be classified as nostalgic (tragic) comedies, the more serious describes The Virgin Suicides (1999) - based on true events - and The Ice Storm ( 1997) Morals of the Vietnam and Nixon era, in which parents are helpless and incomprehensible about the needs of their children and thus conjure up tragedies . Detroit Rock City from 1999 and Almost Famous (2000) celebrate the rock euphoria of that time.

In contrast to more ambitious works, films like Crazy About Mary and American Pie were seen as typical examples of a gaudy comedy that was becoming popular again, which also used disgust and fecal humor, among other things, about sperm and farts. Josh and SAM from 1993 are one of the "feelgood movies" of this decade . One like no other sparked a boom in teenage romance comedies in 1999.

2000 until today

The transition into the new millennium was accompanied by several successful adaptations of Shakespeare's works , after Clueless - What Else! (1995) had very successfully modernized the Jane Austen novel Emma . The first of these films was Romeo & Juliet in 1997 . Julia Stiles plays a leading role in three other film adaptations: 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Hamlet (2000) and O (2001). At around the same time, Eiskalte Engel was a modernization of the letter novel Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos , who had already seen several film adaptations .

Another constant successful film genre is the Fantasy - adaptation . The Chronicles of Narnia: The King of Narnia (2005), Eragon - The Legacy of the Dragon Riders (2006) and The Golden Compass (2007) stand for elaborate series in the tradition of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings . However, only the former has so far received approval for a sequel, while the winter solstice - The Hunt for the Six Signs of Light (2007) didn't even make it to the cinema.

The comic adaptation Ghost World (2000), on the other hand, describes the daily routine of a self-chosen outsider who, through contact with a man twice her age, realizes that her attitude creates many problems and that she has strayed too far from real life. In the youth drama The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002), which is set in the repressive milieu of a Catholic school in the 1970s, the main characters try to escape the pressure of their environment. Another outsider in a school world dominated by cliques, athletes and cheerleaders is Napoleon Dynamite , who in 2004 completely ignored all standards of coolness and tried to help his Mexican school friend become head boy.

Various films also prove that the family is often largely responsible for the difficulties in growing up. Tart - Jet Set Kids (2001) shows young people from broken families who want to be part of the jet set but fail. In the tragic comedy American Girl (2002), based on true events, on the other hand, the various troubled family members recognize their various problems on the occasion of a day of visiting their father, who has been convicted of murder, and are thereby enabled to overcome them. The world of immigrants is at the center of the comedy Real Women Have Curves (2002): A young woman of Mexican descent, with her desire to study, turns her tradition-conscious mother against her, who does not want to accept her daughter's search for cultural identity.

To the various socio-political issues that realistic and be treated seriously include pedophilia and homophilia ( LIE - Long Iceland Expressway 2001), shootings ( Elephant 2003) and the tendency of society, not to deal with their problems themselves, but in the hands of psychiatrists to give ( Thumbsucker 2005). The independent drama Loving Annabelle from 2006 represents a modern variant of girls in uniform about the love of a teacher and their pupil .

In Mean Creek (2004), some youngsters want to take revenge on a boy who is constantly harassing them and swear to do mischief. In the psychological thriller Hard Candy (2005), the balance of power between the victim and the perpetrator of apparent sexual abuse changes . In 2005 Brick showed a film noir at a high school : a student goes in search of a missing ex-girlfriend.

The first serious film about rap culture in which Eminem assumed the allegedly autobiographical leading role was 8 Mile (2002) by Curtis Hanson .

A so-called Feelgood movie is the Disney remake Freaky Friday (2003), in which mother and daughter swap bodies through the magic of an old Chinese woman. Even in rather shallow comedies, however, the characters can face deeper problems: In The Girl Next Door (2004) a schoolboy discovers that his girlfriend was making pornographic films and finds himself in a conflict between prejudices and moral concepts , but also with his narrow-minded environment.

The adventure film The Secret of Green Lake (2003), although set in an education and labor camp, also has a lot of fun aspects to it. Eulen - Little Friends in Big Danger (2006) is an entertaining environmental thriller , which was only released on DVD in Germany. Both are film adaptations of very successful youth novels.

In 2007 the musical genre again celebrated a renaissance ( Hairspray , High School Musical ) and the successes of Superbad and The First Time showed that the principle of American Pie is not yet exhausted. On the other hand, Juno , which won four Oscar nominations in main categories and was awarded for the best original screenplay, is proof that intelligent films about young people can have a long lasting effect and impress adults too.

Youth films from other cultural areas

There are a considerable number of non-Western films on view in Europe. However, these often differ fundamentally from the youth films that are common here. They often do without familiar stylistic devices, such as the use of pop music, humorous loosening of the plot or the happy ending. Due to the strange cultural background and the unusual living conditions described, these films tend to find an adult audience with us.

Africa

Very interesting films have also come to us from Africa , such as God's Gift (Burkina Faso 1982). This film tells the story of a silent boy in an African village. In Two Worlds (Zimbabwe 1988), the true story of a 13-year-old white man in South Africa, the apartheid told. The 1992 British produced film musical Sarafina! takes place in 1976, also at the time of apartheid, in South Africa and is about the rebellious students of a school in the South Western Townships (also known as Soweto ) near Johannesburg . Two recent African youth dramas are Moolaadé - Ban of Hope (Senegal 2004) and Zulu Love Letter (South Africa 2004). The first film shows how a courageous woman with the ancient magic spell Moolaadé tries to protect four young girls who have fled into their house from the threatening circumcision . The second film depicts the problematic relationship between a deaf schoolgirl and her suicidal mother, who as a journalist was tortured by apartheid thugs during her pregnancy.

Asia

Perhaps the most important youth film in Asia is Salaam Bombay! (India 1988) by the Indian director Mira Nair . The film, which was awarded the Golden Camera in Cannes in 1988 and was nominated for an Oscar in 1989, is an extremely impressive portrayal of the experiences of a country boy in the largest city in the world according to its population, Bombay . In the visually outstanding youth drama Memento Mori (South Korea 1999), the story of two schoolgirls who love each other is told in a very surreal and extremely melancholy manner, and who remain intellectually connected even after one of them has committed suicide . In the guilt-and-atonement drama Samaria (South Korea 2004), an underage girl prostitutes herself in order to finance a trip to Europe for herself and her friend, who was initially only a geek. After the amateur whore's accidental death, which was partly to blame , the friend acts as a “reparator” while her father, a police officer, starts a private campaign of revenge against the suitors .
Beijing Bicycle (People's Republic of China 2001); Xiao's way (PR China 2002).

Muslim countries

Films from Muslim countries can be well worth seeing and interesting for a young audience. Some of these films convey an authentic insight into a completely different reality.

In Halfaouine - Time of Dreams (Tunisia 1990), the last "childhood days " of a 12-year-old boy in Tunis are staged. In West Beirut (Lebanon 1998) three young people are happy about the beginning of the civil war in 1975 because the school is being closed, preferring to listen to American music and making Super 8 films while their sexuality is slowly awakening. In the time of the drunken horses (Iran 2000) young Kurds try to save their terminally ill brother. The award-winning film Osama (Afghanistan 2003) tells of a girl who disguises herself as a boy in the Taliban Afghanistan . The drama Turtles Can Fly (Iran / Irak 2004), which is showered with festival prizes, tells the tragic story of the 13-year-old Kurdish satellite who, like a little general, assigns his children's troop to collect landmines in a refugee camp on the border with Iraq . so he can sell them on the black market.

In 2004, European funds were used to finance the Palestine- based film Paradise Now about two young suicide bombers .

South and Central America

In the festival success Y Tu Mamá También - Lust for Life (2001) from Mexico , two befriended and aimless adolescents try to tear up a woman who is around ten years older - and skid when the doomed woman actually engages in an erotic love triangle with them. The movingly narrated Chilean film drama Machuca, mein Freund (2004) tells of the friendship between two boys from very different social backgrounds in Chile in 1973 and how their carefree life was thrown completely off track by a military coup . The Colombian-American co-production Maria voll der Gnade (2004) tells the story of the 17-year-old pregnant Colombian Maria, who, with 62 swallowed nut-sized cocaine capsules in her stomach, sets off as a drug courier to the USA, because the unscrupulous clients would otherwise attack would assault their family.

Indigenous peoples

Films about indigenous peoples often deal with young people's search for cultural identity. Whale Rider (New Zealand 2002), for example, tells the story of a young Māori girl who wants to grow up to be the leader of her tribe. The drama Long Walk Home (Australia 2002) shows the authentic story of the exhausting escape of three young Aboriginal girls from a re-education camp in 1931. As early as 1971, two siblings were stranded in Walkabout in the Australian outback and had to join a native who took part in an initiation rite.

In the Oscar-nominated Norwegian adventure film Pathfinder (1987; German TV alternative title The Revenge of the Trackers ) by director Nils Gaup , the story of a Sami tribe is told that was told by a clever 16-year-old around the year 1000 AD Heroes are saved from annihilation by their presumably overpowering enemies.

The adventure film The Emerald Forest (UK 1985) deals with the authentic part story of a white boy from Amazon - Indians kidnapped, brought up by them and years later, despite the rediscovery by the real father against its civilization and for "his master" decides.

Further information

Age rating

Young people's films usually have an age rating of FSK 12 or FSK 16 . However, some youth films are also approved with FSK 6 . Because the FSK only checks whether there is content in the film that is unsuitable for children.

The FSK does not check whether an FSK-6 film is really a children's film or a youth film. Therefore it may well be that in an FSK-6 film the full meaning of the work is only grasped by older children or young people.

Youth Film Awards

Important youth film awards are for example:

See also

literature

  • Jonathan Bernstein: Pretty in Pink. The Golden Age of Teenage Cinema. New York 1997, ISBN 0-312-15194-2 .
  • Vera Hütte, Hauke ​​Lange-Fuchs : The picture of children in Scandinavian films.
  • Jürgen Lauffer, Renate Röllecke, Dieter Wiedemann: Youth film special. Growing up in separate countries: German youth films from East and West. Recommendations and background. Writings on media education / Society for media education and communication culture (GMK), Bielefeld 1995, ISBN 3-929685-09-4
  • Marina Küffner: Rebellion, listlessness, antidepressants and apocalypse - existential rebellion in film since James Dean. Mühlbeyer Verlag, Frankenthal 2015, ISBN 978-3-945378-25-0 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Youth film  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Wolfgang Ruge: The representation of fear and fear in children's films . Otto von Guericke University, Institute for Educational Science, Faculty of Humanities, Social and Educational Sciences, Magdeburg July 2008, 3.4 The exams of a hero's journey (Harry Potter) , p. 57-76 .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 9, 2006 .