Year of release: 2008
Courtesy of Wildbunch Distribution, © Carole Bellaïche
Paying homage to Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring, a melodrama about a father and daughter whose close and loving relationship is sacrified for the sake of social conventions, 35 Shots of Rum centres on a similarly close father-daughter bond but lacks the melodramatic affect and concludes on a more optimistic note.
Filed under: Coming of age | Daughters | Fathers
Year of release: 2002
Based on Meera Syal's autobiographical novel, Anita & Me centres on the bright 12-year-old Meena growing up with her Punjabi parents in a small town in the Midlands in 1972.
Filed under: Asian British | Coming of age
Year of release: 2002
Jess's (Parminder Nagra) sartorial transformation
In Hounslow, west London. 18 year old Jess Bhamra dreams of playing professional football like her idol David Beckham, but her Punjabi Sikh parents have more conventional plans for her: a law degree and marriage. Jules, a white female striker, spots Jess playing park football and invites her to join the local women's team.
Filed under: Asian British | Coming of age | Fathers | Mothers | Wedding / Marriage
Year of release: 2004
Referred to as British Boyz N The Hood, compared to Juice and Ratcatcher, inspired by Ken Loach's Kes, Saul Dibb's feature film debut Bullet Boy is the story of a futile attempt to break out of a criminal milieu that ends with the protagonist's killing.
Filed under: Black British | Coming of age | Crime | Mothers | Sons
Year of release: 1995
Ismael and Mouloud, two brothers of Maghrebi descent, make their way to Marseilles, from where the younger of the two is to be sent 'home' to his parents in North Africa.
Filed under: Coming of age | Crime | Journey | Maghrebi French
Year of release: 1999
Salford, 1971. Proud Pakistani chip shop owner George Khan lives in a terraced house with his white wife Ella and their seven children. Determined to raise them as traditional Muslims, George sends sons Nazir, Abdul, Tariq, Saleem, Maneer and Sajid to the mosque and makes daughter Meenah dress in saris. However the kids will not submit quietly.
Filed under: Asian British | Coming of age | Fathers | Mothers | Patriarchy | Queer diaspora | Religion
Year of release: 2002
Züli Aladag's feature film debut Elephant Heart is a coming-of-age story about a young boxer in the amateur league, who dreams of going professional but has to learn what sacrifices he has to make if he wants to reaslise his ambition. At the centre of the strory is Marco - played by Germany's rising star Daniela Brühl (Good Bye, Lenin! and The Edukators) - a young amateur boxer searching for his own identity.
Filed under: Coming of age | Crime | Fathers | Sons | Turkish German
Year of release: 2002
This Turkish German coming-of-age story centres on seventeen-year-old Johanna, who lives with her single mother in Cologne. Her one ambition in life is to become a fashion designer but she needs to find the money to study in Paris.
Filed under: Coming of age | Daughters | Fathers | Patriarchy | Secrets | Turkish German
Year of release: 2003
The story of a friendship between the Jewish boy Momo, whose mother died and whose father is not interested in taking care of him, and Monsieur Ibrahim, the Turkish owner of a store in a poor and multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Paris.
Filed under: Coming of age | Journey | Religion
Year of release: 2006
Züli Aladag's controversial made-for-television film Rage imagines the encounter between a white middle-class German family and a young Turkish migrant, who intrudes into the family and terrorises them, as an escalation of violence that challenges the liberal values of the hegemonic family.
Filed under: Coming of age | Crime | Fathers | Patriarchy | Secrets | Sons | Turkish German