Canillitas
2023 · 21m · España
Directed by Raúl de la Fuente
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, provocative, tender
Children who work on the streets of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, are having their lives changed by their encounter with Don Bosco: now they go to school and dream of stopping work and leaving danger behind to become good professionals in the future, in a documentary denouncing the defencelessness and risks suffered by working minors.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Documentary about street kids going to school sounds like every NGO tearjerker, but de la Fuente resists the savior narrative—this is neither inspiration porn nor despair; it's genuinely weird watching children negotiate their own futures with the kind of clarity most films refuse to let them have.
The formal restraint is what matters here: a observational documentary that knows the weight of its subject demands precision over manipulation, positioning itself in the lineage of humanist cinema that trusts the image over voice-over sentiment.
The crucial move is letting the kids' own language and rhythm dictate the pacing—no accelerated cuts or dramatic scoring; just the specific cadence of how they actually speak about work and school that makes their agency feel earned rather than granted by a filmmaker.