Teen Dox: Documentary Stories on Maturing and Growing Up

Have you heard of internet addiction? China is the first country to declare this a clinical disorder! American film Web Junkie by Shosh Shlam and Hila Madalia presents the stories of three teenagers reprogrammed at a Beijing rehab centre. Web Junkie arrives directly from Sundance and portrays the microcosm of modern-day life in China. View the TRAILER here.

A clash of cultures combined with a father-daughter relationship is the subject of the Italian film Roots and Wings by Lisa Mirjam Wimmer. The protagonists of this documentary story live thousands of miles apart. Oliver is a German paraglider who spends most of his time travelling and his daughter is a Chilean living in Santiago, who never travelled further than Argentina. Their mutual contact is limited by language barriers and depends on Oliver’s occasional visits to Chile.

An unusual story about female virginity is showcased in the American film How to Lose Your Virginity by Theresa Shechter. This hilarious, incredible and sometimes disturbing documentary, in addition to the filmmaker’s story about losing virginity, explores the uninterrupted value of virginity in hypersexualised society. Combining documentary interviews and old sex-ed movies with honest self-reflection and witty narration, Shechter dissolves myths, dogmas and delusion of the precious gift. The TRAILER is available on the official website.

A goat breeding family in the American South is where the action of Stop the Pounding Heart takes place, a documentary by Roberto Minervini. The protagonist is young Sara, growing up in a religious family and raised to keep her emotional and physical purity until marriage. But everything changes when she meets a young bull rider and starts questioning the only lifestyle she known. The film won the Golden Dove for best documentary at DOK Leipzig in 2013, and a special jury prize at the International Youth Film Festival in Turin the same year. The TRAILER is available here.

India is, on the other hand, the location of Light Fly, Fly High by Norwegian filmmakers Beathe Hofseth and Susann Østigaard, focusing on young Thulasi, an Indian girl born outside the caste, who trains boxing intensely and fights for her position on the social ladder. The film follows the girl during three turbulent years experiencing numerous changes, from extreme ups and downs to victories and defeats in both the ring and life. Check out the TRAILER here.

One local representative in the Teen Dox section is Fight by the famous TV host and reporter Tomislav Jelinčić. Another sports tale, about a graduate girl from Zagreb who trains Thai boxing but has no one to fight against in Croatia. Studying for her final exam and university entrance, all her thought and efforts are placed in the preparation for the upcoming European championship in Portugal where she will meet real opponents for the first time.

Teen Dox also screens five short documentaries. The multi-award-winning Red Carpet by Manuel Fernández and Iosu López about the problems of growing in poor Bombay suburbs is a story about Rubina, who only briefly solved the problem of growing up in the poverty of Bombay with her role in Slumdog Millionaire. Argentine The Queen by Manuel Abramovich takes the viewers to the world on children’s beauty pageants, and Swedish The Flogsta Roar by Johan Palmgren shows the unique tradition in the world: on the student campus of Flogsta every night hundreds of students at the same time release their anxieties by screaming out the windows. Teen Dox shows another Swedish film, With Open Eyes, by Erik Bäfving, and Spanish film Kisses by Guillermo Benet.