DIRECTED BY PETRA LATASTER-CZISCH AND PETER LATASTER

THE NETHERLANDS • 2016 • 114 MINS. • IN DUTCH AND ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • ICARUS FILMS

WITH

WHEN I HEAR THE BIRDS SING

DIRECTED BY TRINE VALLEVIK HÅBJØRG

NORWAY  2016  8 MINS.  IN FRENCH WITH  ENGLISH SUBTITLES

The international press calls MISS KIET’S CHILDREN: “a jewel,” “subtle but powerful,” and “tender and shrewdly observed.” In the Dutch countryside, a gaggle of refugee children, mostly from Syria, are students in Miss Kiet’s classroom. Smart, compassionate, keenly aware of the problems they’ve already lived through – she teaches them to speak Dutch, to talk the talk -- but more importantly, to walk the walk.  Trust, patience, compassion, and humor are part of the lesson plan. For a refugee child anywhere in the world, Miss Kiet’s class must be the closest thing to dying and going to heaven. The movie is a revelation to anyone who reads the headlines but has no idea how delightful, confounding, and thoroughly surprising “refugees” can be. Also on the program: WHEN I HEAR THE BIRDS SING, an animated film in which children from the Ivory Coast give their accounts of war and peace.

Presented with support from the Richard Brick, Geri Ashur, and Sara Bershtel Fund for Social Justice Documentaries

This program is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

Reviews

“A lovely film. Entirely engrossing, tender and shrewdly observed. What is so good is simply the children’s faces. They have a simple, unconscious power. (The film) reminded me of the documentary classic TO BE AND TO HAVE by Nicolas Philibert: there is the same clarity and simplicity… And the personalities involved are tremendous.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)

“A master class in nonfiction filmmaking. Truly outstanding. A lovely, upbeat, even life-affirming film.”
– The Hollywood Reporter

“Easily the best Dutch film of the year”
– Trouw Newspaper (The Netherlands)

“All about hope and what can be achieved by one good woman.”
– Screen Daily