The best Sabine Timoteo’s family movies

A strange family: 17-year-old Phil lives with his mother and twin sister in an old mansion on the outskirts of town. When he returns from summer camp, the mood in the mansion has soured somehow. Phil doesn’t worry about it, hanging out with his best friend Kat instead. When he starts to feel attracted to a mysterious new student at school, Phil is plunged into emotional turmoil only exacerbated by the trouble at home.

Up until the middle of the 19Th century, poverty stricken mountain farmers from the Ticino area of Switzerland frequently sold their children to Milan as chimney sweeps or spazzacamini. That is also young Giorgios fate. He is forced to climb through pitch black chimneys, flinging down the soot with his bare hands. But he does not lose heart. Together with his buddies sharing in the same misery, he establishes the association of Black Brothers. They stick together, struggling against their penury and getting involved in fights with the street gangs of Milan. The film tells of the gripping adventures of the chimney sweep boys and their spectacular escape back to their native land.

On an impulse, 60 year old Charlotte leaves her husband stranded at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. A deep and driven instinct has her setting off, away from her old mundane life as a grandmother, a mother, a wife, and towards a new and different life. Little does she know that her granddaughter, Jo, a wonderfully whimsical child, is hiding in the back of the car. Charlotte’s spontaneous escape triggers off a journey, not only for her and her granddaughter, but also for her husband Paul and daughter Alex. As Paul and Alex pursue Charlotte and Jo across the countryside, they stumble into their own mishaps, self discoveries and emotional confrontations.

Matti is 11 years old and dreams of a family vacation in his father’s native country, Finland. He manages to get what he wants by telling a whopping lie. But once they get there, Matti, his younger brother Sami and his parents find themselves without a place to stay, no money and no car in the middle of Finnish wilderness. Only a miracle can save them – or Uncle Jussi, who has been struggling to compete with Matti’s father his whole life. This movie based on Salah Naoura’s award-winning children book offers entertainment for people of all ages.

Paul Silberstein, youngest son of an urbane but deeply strange old Austrian dynasty of confectionery millionaires, discovers the power of love and humor - and also his own extraordinary ability to shape his realities. Based on the motives of the short story with the same name by André Heller.