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GODS OF MOLENBEEK

By Reetta HUHTANEN

Documentary - Completed 2019

Growing up in Brussels' infamous Molenbeek district, a trio of curious six-year-olds grapple with oversized questions of religion and faith in a frightening adult world of subway bombings and police patrols.

- Year of production
- 2019
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- FINLAND, BELGIUM, GERMANY
- Languages
- FRENCH, ARABIC, FINNISH
- Duration
- 70 mn
- Director(s)
- Reetta HUHTANEN
- Producer(s)
- Hannu-Pekka VITIKAINEN (Zone2 Pictures)
- Synopsis
- Growing up in the Molenbeek district of Brussels amidst suicide bombings and police patrols, six-year-old friends Aatos and Amine ponder the big existential questions that have occupied thinkers and theologians since the beginning of time. Is there a higher power? Is nature a god? Aatos wants a god of his own, just as Amine has Allah, but the question becomes complicated when his friend Flo expresses her belief that «people who believe in God have become crazy…crazy because they believed God existed and he doesn’t.» With refreshing clarity, the kids strip spirituality down to its basic principles and question knowledge itself. The way these children make sense of the senseless and reflect their surroundings via make-believe stands to teach adults a great deal about how and when humans become separated from their humanity.