Filmhouse, Mark Cousins taking childhood season on tour

The season will comprise 17 films about childhood (see below for full list).

Most of the titles in the season are featured in Cousins’ documentary A Story of Children and Film, which premiered at Cannes last year.

The April-June tour will take in London, Belfast, Cardiff, Nottingham, Glasgow, Brighton, Bristol and Sheffield among other cities.

The season is managed by Filmhouse, which has also licensed VoD rights to a number of the titles.

The project is backed by the BFI’s Programming Development Fund. Adam Dawtrey and Mary Bell, who also produced A Story of Children and Film, are producers.

The full list of titles screening in the Cinema of Childhood season are:

• “Willow and Wind” (Bid-o Baad). Iran, Japan, 1999. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 77 mins. A boy breaks a school window, and must mend it himself before he’s allowed back in class.

• “Bag of Rice” (Kiseye Berendje). Iran, Japan, 1998. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 80 mins. A little girl and an old blind lady decide to carry a sack of rice across Tehran.

• “The Boot” (Chakmeh). Iran 1993. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 60 mins. A little girl craves a new pair of red wellies – but then loses one.

• “The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun” (La petite vendeuse de soleil). Senegal, Switzerland, France, Germany 1999. D. Djibril Diop Mambety. 45 min. A feisty crippled girl tries to improve her life by selling newspapers on the streets of Dakar.

• “Hugo and Josephine” (Hugo och Josefin). Sweden, 1967. D. Kjell Grede. 82 mins. The lonely daughter of a rural pastor makes friends with a wild boy who lives in the woods.

• “The King of Masks” (Bian Lian) China, Hong Kong, 1997. D. Wu Tian-Ming. 91 mins. An old illusionist buys a young boy to become his apprentice – but the boy isn’t quite what he seems.

• “The White Balloon” (Badkonake sefid) Iran 1995. D. Jafar Panahi. 85 mins. A stubborn little girl wants a new goldfish, and won’t let anything get in her way.

• “Tomka and his Friends” (Tomka dhe shokët e tij) Albania, 1977. D. Xhanfise Keko. 78 mins. A gang of Albanian boys in WW2 become secret agents for the Resistance when German troops occupy their village.

• “Palle Alone in the World” (Palle alene i verden). Denmark 1949. D. Astrid Henning-Jensen. 25 min. A boy wakes up to find Copenhagen deserted, and it becomes his giant playground.

• “Ten Minutes Older”. (Par desmit minutem vecaks). Latvia 1978. D. Herz Frank. 10 mins. One close-up, 10 minutes long, of a small boy’s face as he watches a thrilling puppet show.

• “Long Live the Republic” (At’ zije republika) Czechoslovakia, 1965. D. Karel Kachyna, 134 mins. A bullied boy tries to survive in a Czech village as the Germans retreat and the Russians advance.

•  “Moving” (Ohikkoshi) Japan, 1993. D. Shinji Sômai. 124 mins. A girl struggles to come to terms with her parents’ divorce.

• “Forbidden Games” (Jeux interdits). France, 1952. D. René Clément. 86 mins. A boy and a girl retreat into a fantasy world to escape the horrors of WW2.

• “Crows” (Wrony). Poland, 1994. D. Dorota Kędzierzawska. 63 mins. A neglected girl steals a younger girl to become her surrogate mother.

• “Little Fugitive”. USA 1953. Dir Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin. 80 mins. A 7-year-old boy runs away to Coney Island when he thinks he’s killed his older brother.

• “Children in the Wind” (Kaze no naka no kodomo) Japan, 1937. D. Hiroshi Shimizu. 88 mins. The idyllic village life of a Japanese boy falls apart when his father is falsely imprisoned.

• “The Unseen” (Nespatřené). Czech Republic, 1997. D. Miroslav Janek. 53 mins. Documentary about Czech blind kids with remarkable talents, including taking photos.