manifest

Phom Penh, Cambodia, nowadays. Sony, a 10-year-old Cambodian kid working at a discharge, is thrown out of home by his father. Left on his own, he is fostered by an association that is allowing him to go to school and to discover a new way of living. Sony will quickly settle, but on the day of a school outing, he makes an unexpected discovery.

Summer 1996. Roma is seven years old and what she likes most is to make arrows with Louis, her older brother. Their mother, Florence, doesn't seem in a rush for their in-laws to join them in the Jura for a few days vacation. If we look closely, nor does little Roma. Why do we have a strange feeling of uneasiness hovering in the family home and that, between mistrust and denial, it is part and parcel of this normal vacation?

Advised by an administration full of good intentions, Latefa and her two children Walid and Ptissam Frenchize their first names at the same time as they acquire French nationality. They face this unique ordeal with humor and lightness, just before the start of the school year.

Bacata is the first name of Bogotá: the lady of the Andes, the mountain that lights up. It's also the name of a tower, the tallest in Colombia, never completed. From the 28th floor, Laura observes the city, its secrets and its struggles. From the 28th floor of Colombia’s tallest building—a long-awaited, still-unfinished tower block in the centre of Bogota—Laura observes the city below, its secrets and its struggles, as a colourful cast of gardeners, activists, and human statues go about their daily lives in the shadow of the country’s history.