Seelenvögel

This is a documentary on three children suffering from leukemia. One is Pauline, a 15-year-old girl, Lenni, a six-year-old boy and yet another boy called Richard, 10 years old, who all live in or near Munich.

You see them at hospital and at home, how their families try to make their lives comfortable, and they all wonder whether it is sometimes desirable to try a new therapy which might or might not prolong your life but will definitely increase your suffering. They all appear to be wise and much more mature than normal teenagers, and they all have put some thought into death and dying, even little Lenni who suffers from Down Syndrome and cannot really speak.

As this is not a feel-good Hollywood movie but a real-life story, you can be sure that not all of them will be alive and kicking at the end of the film. So make sure you have some handkerchiefs with you (crying with other people in the audience can have a cathartic effect) and enjoy this film which, despite its subject, it is not depressing at all.