Dessau, in 1985. The American break dance movie “Beatstreet” is officially shown in East German cinemas. 18-year-old Frank and his friends Alex, Michel and Martina are fascinated. They watch the film again and again and try out breakdancing themselves. They dance in the street, on a piece of linoleum brought along. As more and more young people join them, the party officials become keen-eared.

The young Anya grew up in an orphanage and is now working as an assistant at the university. One day she is caught up by her past, because Dima, a former friend from the orphanage, lodges secretly drugs in Anya’s apartment. When thereupon the police come, Anya runs off. Her lover, the married Professor Lucius, can only assist her with money so she can disappear for a while.

Arjun grows up in an Indian slum and works in a small tea shop until late at night in order to support his mother and siblings. As he watches a group of children training on inline skates in front of the shop, he dreams of becoming a champion on the small wheels. Since the fast roller skates are unaffordable for him, he has to come up with something.

Gulnoz spends the summer with her grandmother Khalima in the country. Time seems to stand still in the mountains of Uzbekistan where everything is so different and new for the little girl from the city. Gulnoz does not need any toys at her grandmother’s home. There are so many exciting things to discover on her excursions in the beautiful landscape: goldfish in the river, a hedgehog in the meadow, a rabbit in the bush.

Ten-year-old Amka lives with his sister and his brother in a Mongolian town. The siblings have lost their parents in a tragic accident. The older brother blames himself for this misfortune, wallows in self-pity and begins to drink. From this time onwards, young Amka has to provide for his siblings, taking care of the household, searching for food, fetching water and earning a few pennies.

Lola is eleven years old and lives with her mother Loretta on an old houseboat by the river. Actually, she could be quite happy if her father had not “vanished into thin air” two years ago. She often dreams that he comes back. She no longer goes to the hairdresser and lets her red hair, which her father liked so much, just grow. She still wears her old sneakers, even though they are all too small.

The kindergarten kids Rieke, Max, Lene, Paul, Suse and Ben live in Bollersdorf. Bollersdorf is famous; it is said to be the “most normal place” across the country and its residents are considered to be “German average citizens”. The adults are very proud of this. And they particularly appreciate that Bollersdorf has been selected to test all possible new goods.

The young musician Max and his friends Joscha, Lukas and Fabio dream of finally making it big with their indie band called “Systemfehler”. They have already one big hit: “When Inge is Dancing”. Max has “borrowed” the name Inge from his greatest enemy: his classmate and eco-warrior Inge, who really grates on his nerves with her classical guitar plucking and precocious sayings.

16-year-old Mateo works for his sly uncle Walter collecting excessive lending rates from marketers in the Northern Colombian city of Barrancabermeja. The money he earns enables him to support his single mother who works hard together with her friends to provide for the small family. Out of necessity, she accepts the dirty cash earned by her son.

Brent has just moved from Tielt to Brussels with his parents, allegedly because his father has found a new job here. In reality, his parents could not stand the provincial town anymore because Brent's twin brother died there in a car accident. But this is not talked about in the family, although the mother almost breaks down due to her grief.

Kolya from Kiev is 13 years old and can blow the trumpet better than most other musicians. He plays in the school’s brass band “Berezil” and even writes his own music. Just as the little orchestra has decided to compete in a contest for the prize of the mayor, the popular band leader, Vasil Pavlovich, breaks a leg and is hospitalised.

“Candy Bomber” – this is the name obese Cindy is contemptuously called by her father, who believes his daughter is capable of hardly anything. And Danny, her pretty crazy childhood friend, says that her parents would have preferred to have the caretaker’s child, who was already born dead. Cindy is 18 years old and lives in Schönefeld, a suburb of Berlin, near the major BER airport.

Mateus has suffered from cerebral palsy since his birth. He cannot control his body and therefore cannot speak. He understands everything going on and being said around him: The fantastic tales of his father, his mother’s pet names and also the snide remarks of his sister. If only he could communicate with them and show them “that he is not retarded”.

Geppetto, a poor old toymaker, is flabbergasted when he sees a piece of pine wood marching directly into his house. Instead of using it as firewood, he cuts a puppet out of it. The next morning, this puppet is vitally alive jumping around the room. Geppetto names him “Pinocchio” and cares for him like a father. But loveable Pinocchio is also quite stubborn.

“Someone said happiness is just a matter of proper perspective” says 17-year-old Lea and lists the advantages of her life: “Who has an own chauffeur service already at my age? Who goes around with 20 liters of private oxygen?” Lea suffers from cystic fibrosis, an incurable metabolic disease that has affected her lungs.

The teenager Lauren has to carry a great responsibility. Since the accidental death of her parents, she has lived with her younger brother Harvey in their grandmother Joan’s house suffering from Alzheimer’s. So Lauren does not only take care of the household, she also has to protect Joan from herself. In this situation, she – the best runner in her school – is offered to attend a sports boarding school.

Christmas is just around the corner but despite the newspaper’s daily announcements of snow for Flåklypa, there is no sign that winter is actually going to come to the Norwegian village sometime soon. For Ludvig the hedgehog, who lives together with Solan the magpie and inventor Reodor Felgen, anything but white Christmas is unthinkable.

Eleven-year Tomáš Hrobský wants to become a film director. With his friend Haris Kubálek, he wants to create a kind of chronicle of daily life in moving pictures by means of a camera and a video-editing programme. The main focus should be on his own, but also on Haris’ family, their friends and school. But the plan to conjure up an ideal world and put it on computer turns out to be an illusion.

12-year-old Nicolas lives with his older sister and his mother in a village by the sea. Two years ago, his father was surprised by a storm when fishing on the high sea and drowned. Nicolas’s granddad Jeremy was with him; but he could not save his son. For this reason, and as Jeremy’s been drinking since then, the family, especially Nicolas’s mother, no longer talks to him.

Eleven-year-old Chala grew up in difficult circumstances: He does not know his father, and his mother is an alcoholic who cannot care for her son properly. They often lack the money for the bare essentials. Therefore Chala works in the afternoons. He walks the dogs his mother’s boyfriend Ignacio trains and prepares for illegal fights. No wonder Chala’s school results are not the best.

It is summer holidays at last and nobody can “ruin” ten-year-old Ricky Rapper’s day. The red-haired, witty boy lives with his aunt Rose, loves beatboxing, goes out with Nelly, the neighbour’s daughter, and is actually fully satisfied with himself and the world. But then Rose says she has to find a father for Ricky, as a kind of role model.

Thirteen-year-old Hamed is late for school again and again. He not only has to take his mother's sewing products to the customers in the morning, his old bicycle breaks down all the time. Hamed got it from his late father, and it looks like a model “from the stone age”. But his mother, who barely knows how to provide for her two children, cannot buy a new one.

Nick, Ivan, Olivier and Pepijn, all between 14 and 16 years old, are on the cancer ward and give the doctors and nurses a hard time. Their motto is: “Wij zijn niet ziek. wij zijn kankerlijers” – “We’re not sick, we’re sickos.” Although Nick and Ivan have already to endure leg amputation, Olivier faces a difficult operation and Pepijn’s blood values are very poor, the four boys have vowed not to surrender to their illness.

It’s summer in the pretty spa town of Haapsalu on the west coast of Estonia. Markus and his younger sister Emilia are to spend the holidays with their siblings Rosanna and Karl. But Rosanna is awfully bored and would prefer to return home. She couldn’t care less about the legend of the white woman whose shadow appears in the courtyard of the nearby castle in the full moon nights of August.

Doctor Proctor is an inventor from Oslo, who splits the nations with his ideas. Some think he is crazy, others consider him a genius because of his absolutely unusual ideas. For example, he has created a magic juice, which makes those who drink it glow from within. But that is nothing compared to his latest invention: the fart powder!

“In the names of our mothers – we will not tell anyone until we die.” Antistasin (Antti) and Muhiksesta (Muhis), two twelve-year-old friends from childhood days, swear to each other never to reveal what happened that night. The old drunkard Veijo had previously accused them of stealing his mobile phone. In the following scuffle on the edge of a steep bank, Antti pushes the man into the depths.

After the death of his mother, an Albanian singer, 16-year-old rather fancy Danny searches shelter with his older brother Odysseas in Athens. They feel like strangers in their own country because they are considered as Albanians. In fact, their biological father is Greek, but he cleared away soon after their births and never officially acknowledged fatherhood.

The girl Han Gong-ju goes to a new school and therefore moves to another town. Her former teacher Mr. Lee accompanies her, handles all formalities and accommodates Gong-ju initially with his mother. He gives Gong-ju a mobile phone, which she should only use for calling him, and leaves her to her new world. Slowly shy and timid Gong-ju settles down.

The name Erkin is Turkish and means to be free and independent – a person who acts the way he wants. This is also the life motto of helpful Erkin from the village Bulak, which lies in the middle of the Kazakh steppe. Erkin’s mother is dead, his brother is studying in the city and his father is supposedly on a business trip. So the boy lives all alone.

After grandfather Zhigen Zhu left his hometown, he has lived in Beijing and has cared for his friend from the animal kingdom – a nightingale – for 18 years. Both his son, with whom he is currently in conflict and his daughter-in-law are very successful and very busy with their work. They have increasingly drifted apart due to their jobs and rarely talk to each other.

Srulik is almost nine years old when his escape from the Warsaw Ghetto begins. His adventurous way leads through vast, impassable forests and past lonely farms. His food is the fruits of the forest, small animals and insects. Weakened by hunger and cold, one day he knocks on the door of the single farmwoman Magda.

Raimond attends a music high school and is in the midst of puberty. His single mother is a busy woman; her son’s education comes first in her life. Raimond receives a reprimand for a harmless prank at school that was only meant to attract a girl’s attention, which he tries to hide from his mother. From that moment, the boy gets more and more entangled in contradictions and lies that have serious consequences.

The best day in the lives of the twins Zip and Zap is the beginning of the summer holidays. Only this year, the two have bad luck: Together with Filu they are sent to a summer school taking place in the old castle, where strict military rules apply. The children have to wear uniforms and turn in all their toys, get up at dawn and sleep and snore at command at night.

15-year-old Ela is committed to a borstal by her mother after a series of conflicts. At this place, Ela, virtually still a child herself, gets to know girls who have experienced more misery than many adults in their short lives: drugs, crime, and prostitution. Previously, Ela had a relationship with a 30-year-old man, was deeply in love with him and believed in a shared, happy future.

Ziad adores giraffes. He lives with his father Yacine in Qalqiliya, a city in the Palestinian territories. Every day he goes to the zoo, where his father works as a veterinarian, in order to feed the giraffe couple Rita and Brownie. When Brownie dies after an Israeli air strike, Rita refuses to eat. No medicine helps; Rita needs a new partner.

The girl Sasha is excited. The New Year is about to begin in just a few hours. But no one from her family has time to play with her, and even dear old Father Frost has not yet arrived with all his gifts. Out of boredom, Sasha passes her time doing mischief and playing tricks, whereby she almost sets fire to the whole flat.

1943, a village in the German-occupied Netherlands: Tuur and Lambert, two twelve-year-old boys, are inseparable friends. The horrors of war, the regular air attacks have no place in their lives. They are so busy playing war and – although it is prohibited – going on hunting adventures in the nearby cave. Then nice Maartje joins their class and makes friends with the boys; with both boys at first, but she feels more and more attracted to Tuur.

Wrapped in plastic film 16-year-old Siyar is sent across the border illegally in the oil tank of a truck. The Kurdish boy from a small village in Iraq has an assignment: He is to kill his older sister Nermin and thus save the “honour” of his family. For Nermin loves Azad and is not willing to consent to the marriage arranged by clan chief Agha. On the night before her forced marriage, she flees to Europe.

Clara is 13 and lives with her mother Nina and her stepfather John on a remote mountain farm in the Swiss Alps. One day she meets twelve-year-old Thomas. He was transferred from an urban youth center to the mountain village for disciplinary reasons and lives with a host family at the moment. The two outsiders get on very well and become really good friends.