"My film is a charge against a whole system that pushes children to the margins of society," Nadine Labaki says of "Capernaum." "We pretend we do not see it, the violence, the mistreatment, the neglect, but by allowing all this, we commit a great crime."

For four years, the Lebanese director and her team researched the situation of the youngest in the country in their homeland, which was affected by the Syrian civil war. They met children who were beaten, abused and raped, who became criminal and ended up in jail. "Our last question to the children," says Labaki, "has always been: are you happy to be here, are you happy to be alive? The most common answer: No, I do not even know why I'm here, if I am nobody wants."

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"Capernaum - City of Hope": Why did you give birth to me?

From this answer Labaki has developed "Capernaum". In the background story, 12-year-old Zein sued his parents because they gave birth to him without being able to take care of him. In the role of the lawyer representing the boy in court: Nadine Labaki, who was an actress before she began directing.

The boundaries between political commitment and artistic treatment are blurred again and again in "Capernaum". Fittingly, the title borrowed from the Bible in the name of a Galilean city can be translated as a mess or a mess. However, this primarily refers to the life of Zein (Zain Al Rafeeaa).

Having fled Syria with his family, the boy now lives in Beirut with the greatest privation. When his beloved younger sister is married by the parents, so that they no longer have to care for her, nothing keeps him from anger with the family. He is lodged in the slums of Beirut, where it happens to him to look after a toddler whose mother is illegally in Lebanon.

Dirty, haggard and hungry

It is hard not to be moved by the sight of two children who are soiled, haggard and hungry. Labaki counts this reaction firmly in her pictures. But "Capernaum" is not just a concept, but also an experience. Because in their essence, the scenes between the 12-year-old Zein and the one and a half year old Yonas (Treasure Bankole) can hardly be described - because of the question of whether what a toddler does on the screen can already be described as a spectacle.

But also because of the rap, the debutant Al Rafeeaa (whose family fled from Syria to Lebanon) builds with his literally speechless counterpart Bankole. Between the two, there is an understanding that could not be staged, but had to be lived, so that an interaction and ultimately a direction was even possible.

Labaki shot about 500 hours of material for "Capernaum", the cut took almost two years. But neither the long production nor since Cannes ongoing press and award ceremony tour - after the jury prize in Cannes Labaki has already received more than 20 awards, even for the foreign Oscar, the film will be nominated next week - have leached Labaki.

"The court in front of which I put the parents in the film, that's all of us," she says with unrestrained vehemence. "We believe we could judge parents because it's so easy to judge them morally." She herself would have said it during the interviews with the children: "I talked to children, two or three years old, who were alone in the apartment and had to look for their own food, so I wondered where on earth Will the mother be. "

Angry, she then waited for the return of the mother to tell her how to treat her child. "After ten minutes of conversation, however, I suddenly realized: My behavior is presumptuous, I have never starved, my children have never starved, what do I really know about these people's lives, if I did not live it myself?"

So the work on the film has become an emotional roller coaster ride, which actually still continues: "Constantly changes my impression of who the real victim is, because ultimately it is the system that fails and leaves parents alone If the authorities over 100 Demand dollars for a birth certificate, then they can not blame families who can not afford it. "

The goal: to change laws

Leading actor Al Rafeeaa has meanwhile moved to Norway with the help of the UN refugee organization. "He recently attended a school for the first time, he finally lives like a normal child," says Labaki. "But there is so much more to be done, especially prevention programs need to be developed, and I have met children whose traumas were so serious that they could hardly do anything for them."

For such initiatives Labaki wants to advertise with special screenings of "Capernaum" for judges as well as employees of the Ministry of Justice and Social Affairs in Lebanon. "Our stated goal is to change laws." Labaki is convinced that a film is the appropriate tool for this: "Politics has so far completely failed to find new solutions." The only way to change something is through art - by pointing out other ways to think about something. "

In the video: The trailer for "Capernaum - City of Hope"

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alamode

Should Labaki and her mash riders succeed and the laws change in Lebanon, that should not be the end of their commitment. "280 million children have child labor worldwide," she emphasizes the global dimension of the problem. "Child labor means no education, no care - that's how anger develops, but what do we do with those children who grow up with rage in their abdomen? Abuse, violence and neglect in childhood are the source of all evil in the world."

"Capernaum - City of Hope" (rental: Alamode) starts on 17 January