To live like my brothers

摘要

Living Rights, shown at the Human Rights Watch 2005 International Film Festival, is documentary at its very best. Comprised of three short films, each focusing on a single child, Living Rights is an intelligent work shot with a delightful poetic warmth. Yoshi, Toti, and Lena live very different lives thousands of miles apart. Aside from their seemingly endless charm, the trio are linked only by the albatross spitefully swinging from their tender necks. Yoshi faces life with Asperger's syndrome, Toti must contend with a world in which female circumcision is a routine part of growing-up, and Lena has to decide whether to leave her homeland for a country better equipped to treat what might be a brain tumour. Whereas the subject matter is grave, the subjects are not and their energetic presence engenders optimism just as surely as their plight engenders despair.