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Section: International Competition of Feature Films in the Children’s Category (up to 10 years of age)

Adventures in the Land of Asha (2023) 8

In 1940, Jules and his family move to rural Canada. The boy soon realizes that he and his uncle, the local mayor, don’t get along. He takes him to the attic room, where Jules settles in to his satisfaction. He discovers a dusty book about native Americans, which he then almost never puts down. It opens a completely new world to him. After being expelled from school for fear of his rare skin disease, his only friend is the dog Sparky. When he visits the local forest, Jules meets an indigenous girl named Asha, strikingly similar to the one from the recently discovered book. Isolated from the outside world, the boy is given the opportunity to embark on an adventurous journey through the Canadian wilderness to find Ash's Mesquaki tribe and cure his illness. The film is not only a picturesque tale of courage, imagination and unusual friendship, but also an excursion into the lives of Canada's indigenous people.