Años de calle

How will their future be? That is the question photographer Alejandra Grinschpun asked herself when she met four young homeless people during a photography workshop in 1999. Andrés, Rubén, Ismael and Gachi were aged between 12 and 17 at the time. The teenagers spent their nights living in the doorways of a railway station in the centre of Buenos Aires. Being street children, they are completely alone – which means they can also do as they please without ever being kicked out again. In Años de calle, Alejandra Grinschpun follows this quartet over a period of 12 years, meeting up with them in 1999, 2004 and 2011. The film reveals details of unwanted pregnancies, time spent in prison and social separation. But there’s also reason for hope – for example, when Ismael begins giving photography workshops years after finishing his own training. This exceptional, collage-like long-term study documents life on the edge of society and the desperate fight for integration. (Zurich Film Festival)