August

August is a little boy who likes to discover the world, preferably with his best friend Lize, with whom he roams the forest. There, two older boys are up to mischief and one day push August into a perfidious "test of courage", through which not only he loses his childlike innocence, but also his best friend: from now on, Lize doesn't want to see him either... The intense, oppressive short film is quite shocking. It tells of "scandalous things", but without being a "scandal" itself. Ruthlessly, as courageously as precisely, it sketches a portrait of childhood as a study of lovelessness and (sexual) violence that gives birth to new violence. Even more shocking than the insensitivity of the older children, who try out their power games on the younger ones, is the callousness of August's parents, who appear as silhouettes but never as individuals. Strict and devoid of empathy, the father demands August's obedience, literally educates him to fight for survival in a supposedly compassionless society. The haunting final image hurts and digs deep into the memory: violence begets new violence, not only in the "play" of abused and abusive children, but also in the insidious processes of a misguided upbringing.