Little Alien

They’re alive. Because they fled.

Teenagers Juma and Hishame attempt an extremely dangerous journey to Europe, hiding in the chassis of a truck, where they will become the prey of border officers. Ahmed, Nura, Achmad and Asha haver managed to get over the fences.

After arriving in Austria, they try to reorder their lives and fight for their rights to a more or less trouble-free youth. Jawid and Alem have already spent a year and a half in Vienna, hoping their asylum applications will be approved.

The trauma of loss, the longing for their families, the prospect of a completely uncertain future, the meaning (and sense) of laws and odysseys past the government officials and agencies they must deal with characterize their new beginnings.?Although their lives are determined primarily by laws, many of which are inhumane, they take it all with a great deal of humor and have developed their own strategies for dealing with the situation.
They spend their youths living life to the fullest, they’re loud, in-your-face and in love, young people who are trying to conquer life for themselves.

Director Nina Kusturica

Born in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1975, she grew up in Sarajevo in a family of artists. Throughout her time at school she worked on theatrical productions in a number of creative positions.

She has lived in Vienna in 1992, since the beginning of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Studied Directing and Editing at Vienna’s Film Academy, University of Music and Performing Arts. For both subjects she made a number of documentary and fiction films and participated at international and domestic film festivals.?Her thesis film, “Auswege,” opened the Diagonale—Festival of Austrian Film in March 2003, its world premiere was at the international film festival in Berlin—Forum des jungen Films, and it received more than 30 invitations to festivals after that.?In 2003 she founded the film production company Mobilefilm with Eva Testor.

Nina Kusturica writes articles for books and periodicals, teaches at the University of Vienna, and conducts directing and editing workshops.

Credits

with
Nura Bishar
Asha Abdirahman
Jawid Najafi
Alem Ghamari
Ahmed Khodadadi
Achmad Abdirahman
Khalil Karimi
Juma Hassani
Zahra Ibrahim
Herbert Langthaler
Aref Achmadi
Amanuddin Ghasemi
Hosein Ghaznawi
Mohammed Shirzai
Thomas Richard
Said Rezai
Juma Karimi
Gerhard Wallner
Hishame Zair
Peter Newole
Ilse Anna Böhm
Alfred Walcher
Thomas Neugschwendtner
José Palazón
Ibrahim Hachube
Ana Manavi
Klaus Karlbauer
Hafiz Karwandgar

Director, screenwriter
Nina Kusturica

Assistant Director
Nora Friedel

Director of Photography
Christoph Hochenbichler

Additional Camera
Eva Testor
Nora Friedel

Sound
Atanas Tcholakov
Nina Kusturica

Editor
Julia Pontiller
Nina Kusturica

Producers
Nina Kusturica
Eva Testor

Production
Mobilefilm Produktion


Original languages: Dari, Somali, German, English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Slovakian
Subtitles: German / English


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