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The San Antonio metropolitan region is one of the highest-poverty areas in the United States. Roughly one in four children living there experiences hunger. The short documentary Kids Game follows a hunting outing led by the charity City Kids Adventures, which offers outdoor excursions to underprivileged and at-risk San Antonio youth. Capturing the participants in a nonintrusive verité style, the Belgian-born, US-based director Michiel Thomas skilfully tracks the action with a nonjudgmental eye, bringing evenhandedness to a scene – kids holding large guns, learning to kill – that could easily be misconstrued or politicised. Instead, Thomas invites the viewer to draw out and interrogate their own reactions, whether it’s alarm at the image of kids shooting animals, warmth at the teachers’ focus on ethics and growth, frustration at the children’s food poverty despite their country’s vast wealth, or perhaps more likely, some incongruous combination thereof.
Director: Michiel Thomas
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Rituals and celebrations
A beginner’s guide to a joyful Persian tradition of spring renewal and rebirth
3 minutes
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Politics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
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Love and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
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Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes
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The ancient world
The six priestesses who kept the flame of ancient Rome alight at risk of death
5 minutes
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Engineering
A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations
9 minutes
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes
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Work
A Swedish expat in the Philippines wonders: what’s up with people sleeping at work?
14 minutes
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Biography and memoir
The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands
29 minutes