adolescence
authority and rebellion • teenage pregnancy • suicide • leaving home
AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC
Learning Fast (New Zealand 1981)
Film, 16 mm, 48 min., color, in English
Made by Gaylene Preston Productions
Distributor: Gaylene Preston Productions
The film explores changes in parent/child relationships and peer group friendship. Growing up often involves violent changes in the way these 17-year-olds react to the world they find themselves in.
EUROPE
Hungerjahre (West Germany 1979)
(Years of Hunger)
Film, 35 mm, 114 min., b/w, in German
Made by Jutta Bruckner, Jorg Jeshel, Rainer Marz, Peter Hoffmann, Michael Loy, Annelise Krigar, Johannes Schmolling
Distributor: Jutta Bruckner Films (West Germany)
Describes the crisis of an adolescent girl during the 1950s in West Berlin. Unable to establish contact with her surroundings at school and at home, she finally decides to commit suicide. Inevitably, the question remains: What made her do it? What was it she needed?
Princesse (Hungary 1983)
(Princess)
Film, 35 mm, 113 min., b/w, in Hungarian with French subtitles
Made by Pal Erdoss
Distributor: Assia Films (France)
This film describes the daily life of a group of 16-year-old girls living in a worker's dormitory and employed in a factory in Budapest. The film focuses on Jutka, whose new life in the city is full of difficulties, ranging from deceitful friends and lovers, to a lack of communication with her mother, to rape and, finally, to an abortion. Princess received the Gold Camera Award at the 1983 "Cannes" Film Festival and the Gold Leopard Award at the 1983 Locarno Festival.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Historias de Vida (Mexico 1979)
(Life Stories)
Film, 16 mm, in Spanish
Made by Maripi Saenz de la Calzada
Distributor: Centro de la Mujer para la Produccion Audiovisual (Mexico)
This film deals with the pain and difficulties that young girls typically face in religious schools, including the kinds of deceit, lies and guilt feelings that are inflicted on them by their teachers and by Catholic Church morality.
Monse (Mexico 1980)
In Spanish
Made by Gloria Ribe
Distributor: contact Centro de la Mujer para la Produccion Audiovisual (Mexico)
This audiovisual describes the daily life of a young girl in a private school, caught between her own world of fantasy and creativity and the kind of order, hierarchy, competition and religious devotion imposed on her by the school authorities.
El Lugar del Corazon (Mexico 1983)
(The Place of the Heart)
Made by Busi Cortes
Distributor: contact Centro de la Mujer para la Produccion Audiovisual (Mexico)
Three schoolgirls use witchcraft to rebel against an authoritarian male teacher.
Homecoming (Argentina)
Super 8 film with soundtrack, 35 min., color, in Spanish
Made by Narcisa Hirsch
Distributor: Narcisa Hirsch (Argentina)
The story of a young girl growing up in Argentina and her first time falling in love, this audiovisual combines black-and-white and color footage to highlight the interaction between the past and present, memory and daily life.
NORTH AMERICA
Our Choice (Canada)
Video, 37 min., in English
Made by Women's Media Alliance
Distributor: Development Education Center (DEC) (Canada)
Made in cooperation with Jessie's, a Toronto centre for teenage mothers, this film presents a group of teenagers describing their experiences with pregnancy, housing, the welfare system and personal relationships.