Do you remember when you were 11?
Australian filmmaker Genevieve Bailey travelled the world for six years talking with 11-year-olds to compose this insightful, funny and moving documentary portrait of childhood. From an orphanage in India, to a single-parent household in inner-city Melbourne, to bathing with elephants in Thailand, I Am Eleven explores the lives and thoughts of children from 15 countries. I Am Eleven weaves together deeply personal and at times hilarious portraits of what it means to sit at this transitional age. These young minds provide us with a powerful insight into the future of our world.
These children share their thoughts on a range of subjects such as love, war, global warming, music, terrorism, culture, family, happiness, religion and the future. Each of their situations allows a single glimpse into a young mind, and combine to provide a powerful insight into the future of our world. As straight up and personal as the ’7 Up’ series, and with the comedy and honesty of ‘Spellbound’, this documentary enables us to explore an age where these ‘not quite kids, not quite teenagers’ briefly linger, between the frank openness and sometimes naivety of childhood, and the sharp and surprisingly brave wisdom and knowing of adulthood. As much as it is a story about them, it is a story with them, of what it is like to be eleven today.
89min/Australia/2011
