As festival director Julia Fleißig said in her recent ECFA Journal interview: “We want our programme to stand out. We don’t have a hundred titles in our catalogue; our catalogue is small and considerately compiled and stimulates thinking out-of-the-box.” From these titles, MICA (Ismaël Ferroukhi, France) was picked by the ECFA Jury.
At the age of ten, Mica has to earn money for his family, living in a Moroccan small town slum. When sent to Casablanca, he starts working in a tennis club, frequented by the city’s upper class. Confronted with humiliation and contempt, Mica sees only one way out: fleeing to Europe. Only when a former tennis champion recognises his talent on the tennis court, new opportunities arise.
The ECFA Jury were Martina Lassacher (Pitanga Festival, Austria), Boris Bakal (Shadow Casters, Croatia) and Laura Schubert (Mo & Friese, Germany).
Among the other award-winning films in the festival were EVEN MICE BELONG IN HEAVEN (by Denisa Grimmová & Jan Bubeníček, Czech Republic, section 8+), LA TRAVIATA, MY BROTHERS AND I (by Yohan Manca, France, section 13+) and THE WHALER BOY (by Philipp Yuryev, Russia, section 16+).