Easy Lessons

Aug 7, 2018

1h 18m

★ 7.5

Overview

Kafia, a young girl on the brink of adulthood, has to leave behind a lot of what defined her Somalian life as she tries to adapt to her new existence in Hungary. As the family’s cultural values and taboos start to fall apart, Kafia tries to explain and make sense of all these changes to her mother left behind.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Éclipse Film

Easy Lessons Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Herself

Kafiya Said Mahdi

In this feature-length documentary, six teenage girls, aged 14 to 16, agree to open up and have their private worlds invaded by the camera. They have to face problems that they intend to take on "to the end": early experience of sexuality, belonging to a gang, relationships with parents, social tolerance, friendship... They live tender and pure lives in their own way.

5.3

Bodysong

Dec 5, 2003

Documentary footage from various sources, set to music. Showing the whole of human life, from birth to death and beyond.

3.5

Tender

Jan 26, 2020

Late summer, a small lake, teenage rascals. Mia, 11 and too wise for her age, asks Hugo, 15 and blasé, to tell her about Chaïnes – a girl he spent evenings with at the lake, trying to seduce her. He felt the fear of declaring his love and the torment provoked by the exuberant but secretive Chaïnes, who never shows her emotions. Mia and her siblings surround them, like a choir. A slow, dark, documentary in which time doesn't seem to exist.

0.0

December

Jun 19, 2025

Amid December’s festive glow, refugees remain hidden in forests along the Poland-Belarus border. This powerful documentary gives voice to their silent cries.

0.0

Les Autres Chemins

Sep 24, 2021

No overview available.

0.0

Bloom

Oct 30, 2022

Three groups of adolescent girl friends from Quebec are going through tough changes. The process of inventing their own bodies and identity are being recorded on the move by their smartphones and shared with their peers from other parts of the networked world. Due to their strong need of external confirmation, they alter their lives into a series of retouched pictures and videos. The film camera, however, captures their feelings of void, loneliness and deep inner insecurities that are not so attractive for Periscope, TikTok or Instagram. An intimate portrait of adolescence is made with full comprehension of experiencing and self-presentation in a generation growing up on the brink of the real and virtual worlds.

5.8

Come On Children

Mar 21, 1973

Five boys and five girls ages 13 to 19 live on a farm for ten weeks, to be filmed, and to see what might emerge for each of them personally.

6.0

Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students

Aug 28, 2025

A major figure in contemporary feminism and the first Frenchwoman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Annie Ernaux is seen by many as a source of individual and collective emancipation, blending the intimate with the universal. Filmmaker Claire Simon has devoted an original portrait to her, giving students and teachers a voice.

0.0

Coming Back for More

Jan 23, 2009

Funk legend Sly Stone disappeared from the limelight for more than 20 years. Musicians and the media tried to find the recluse but failed. In 2005 Willem Alkema started searching for Sly. Sly didn't want to be found or filmed, but Willem didn't give up and finally followed Sly in his first steps on stage in decades.

8.2

Bangla Surf Girls

Apr 29, 2021

Three working-class teenage girls in a port city in Bangladesh escape daily hardships and stifling family lives by riding waves on their surfboards and grabbing hold of the fleeting and thrilling sense of freedom that brings.

5.2

Wow

Mar 25, 1970

In this French Canadian film, the lives of teenagers are examined in fantasy sequences and through the use of documentary interviews. Prompted by the filmmaker, nine teenagers individually act out their secret dreams and, between times, talk about their world as they see it. The fantasy sequences make creative use of animation, unusual film-development techniques, and stills. Babette conceives of herself as an abbess defending her fortress, a convent; Michelle is transported in a dream of love where all time ceases; Philippe is the revolutionary, defeating all the institutions that plague him, and so on, through all their fantasies. All the actual preoccupations of youth are raised: authority, drugs, social conflict, sex. Jutra's style in "Wow" exhibits his innovative approach to storytelling and filmmaking, showcasing his talents as a director during that period. With English subtitles.

6.0

Hide and Seek

Jan 19, 1996

Mixes documentary interviews of memories of lesbian adolescence with the story of the 12-year-old girl Lou discovering her sexuality in 1960s America.

6.9

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment

Oct 21, 1963

During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach and the students Vivian Malone and James Hood. As Wallace has promised to personally block the two black students from enrolling in the university, the JFK administration discusses the best way to react to it, without rousing the crowd or making Wallace a martyr for the segregationist cause. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1999.

4.6

King of the Hill: A 70th Anniversary Retrospective of Cincinnati’s King Records

Aug 8, 2014

James Brown was the jewel in the crown, but the throne of Cincinnati’s King Records always belonged to its irascible founder, Syd Nathan. This is the 70th anniversary of the legendary record label and studio. It closed shop nearly 40 years ago, in a now long-neglected warehouse on the neighborhood border of Evanston and Walnut Hills, but its impact still reverberates across today’s music.

0.0

To Be Beautiful

Nov 11, 2019

The documentary explores issues of beauty and acceptance in a culture increasingly saturated with idealised and unattainable ideals of femininity. It is a story about the world of young girls in today's Latvia, based on conversations about girls' attitudes towards the world and their place in it.

No Image Available

6.2

Black Indians: An American Story

Jan 1, 2004

James Earl Jones narrates this examination of the historical relationship between American Indians and African-Americans, who often merged their cultures to work and live together while mainstream white society shunned them. Through illuminating anecdotes and interviews, descendants of fused black and Indian families discuss the complications of their mixed heritage and how their culture was largely erased on official documents.

7.5

From Abdul To Leila

Jan 15, 2024

After losing part of her memory in an accident, Leila, a young French woman of Iraqi origin, reconstructs her story by reconnecting with her family and exploring her roots. Through music and cinema, she brings her exiled father's poems to lite, dis-covers the reality of the Middle East, and embarks on a personal quest to understand her identity and find her voice.

6.0

Berg Fidel

Sep 13, 2012

If children don't learn from an early age that people are different, when will they? The documentary focuses on four children at the inclusive Berg Fidel primary school in Münster. Director Hella Wenders spent three years following David, Jakob, Lucas, and Anita with her camera at school, at home, and in their free time. While the idea of an open school is currently the subject of lively debate, this sensitive portrait film gives the children a voice. They talk about themselves and share their dreams and concerns with us. The viewer is impressed by how naturally they interact with each other and becomes part of a small world that functions in a miraculous way.

10.0

How would you spend your last day on Earth?

Jun 29, 2020

This project takes its shape from a conversation recorded between Rachelle and Toby, a real couple, living in Brooklyn.