The Smell of Burning Ants is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness. Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will...

In his groundbreaking book, Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices, Ralph Fletcher took an expedition into the murky and sometimes dangerous world of boys and writing. Ralph's new video, Dude, listen to this! explores the issue face-to-face as he meets with a group of boys who voluntarily give up recess time each week to meet and talk about their writing. Dude, listen to this! thoughtfully examines the exuberance, sly humour, and surprising sensitivity...

A boy who is believed to bring bad luck to everyone around him leads his family and two new friends through Laos to find a new home. After a calamity-filled journey through a land scarred by the legacy of war, to prove he's not bad luck he builds a giant rocket to enter the most exciting and dangerous competition of the year: the Rocket Festival.

In this moving follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Hoop Dreams, award-winning filmmaker Frederick Marx continues his exploration of the lives of ordinary young men and the extraordinary challenges they face. Boys to Men? - the second in a proposed trilogy about masculinity in America - trains its focus on the pressures and expectations faced by a diverse group of young urban males. This program consists of four films. Are You Listening? features...

Focusing on the relationship between Hubert Minel (Xavier Dolan), a 16-year-old Quebecois living in suburban Montreal, and his single mother Chantale (Anne Dorval), I killed my mother beautifully captures the anxieties of a mother-son relationship. While he gauges her with contempt, only seeing her out-of-date sweater and kitschy decor, the ingrained mechanisms (i. e. manipulation and guilt) of their relationship beautifully (and tragically) unravel...

Pierfrancesco Diliberto (a renowned TV host and political comedian, better known as Pif) wrote, directed, and stars in this subversive, irreverent feature debut about Arturo, a young boy whose obsession with the Mafia's casual presence in his city surpasses even his passion for Flora, the beautiful schoolmate who remains his main love interest until adulthood.

In Thailand, the young Ton Chatree is sent to a boarding school by his father to study harder and have less entertainment with television. Once in the school, Ton feels outcast and misses his family and friends. He becomes scared with the ghost stories his new schoolmates tell about a boy that died in the swimming pool and a young pregnant woman that committed suicide. He becomes a close friend of the also lonely boy Vichien, and later Ton realizes...

Ça Twiste à Poponguine is perhaps the most charming, fast-paced and accessible film in our Library of African Cinema collection. This bittersweet, coming of age story is a kind of African equivalent of George Lucas' American Graffiti, Spike Lee's Crooklyn or Godard's Masculin/Feminin. These Senegalese teenagers living it up on the beach may also remind less discriminating viewers of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in Beach Blanket Bingo! Director...

This is the hard and shocking story of life in a British Borstal for young offenders. The brutal regime made no attempt to reform or improve the inmates and actively encouraged a power struggle between the 'tough' new inmate and the 'old hands'. The film was originally made as a BBC play but it was banned before ever being shown. So 'Alan Clarke' and 'Roy Minton' got it re-made as a film. This is a tough and brutal film and should not be viewed lightly....

A thoughtful and moving story of a sixteen year old boy who learns to deal with the unique difficulties of becoming an adult in Sarajevo in the 1960's. Young Dino Zolje grows up under the shadow of his good, but ailing father and gets attracted by the world of small time criminals. Then comes Dolly Bell, lovely cabaret girl that turns his world upside down.