Identity, belonging and self-discovery are relatable themes while growing up and throughout life. The characters in this curated selection of six films look to find their identity, fit in, and discover their place in the world. They deal with love, death, bigotry, race, misogyny, and camaraderie along the way. Finding their passion allows them to become heroes in their community, and in life. These themes are prevalent in many coming-of-age films with tweens, teenagers and young adults and tend to resonate with festival and indie audiences, with some becoming breakout hits.
Memoir of a Snail
Adam Elliot’s brilliant dark comedic claymation stop-motion animated Memoir of Snail follows Grace Pudel (voiced by Succession’s Sarah Snook) and her twin brother Gilbert (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) as she narrates her life to her pet snail Sylvia. Grace’s journey through life in Australia entails friendship, love, a foster home, hoarding, death, discovering treasures, and a tearful reunion, along with her twin brother Gilbert’s scourge with religion and self-discovery of being gay. Oddball Grace finds companionship with the older Pinky (voiced by Jacki Weaver), who has a kindred spirit with her sick sense of humor, “She wanted to die peacefully like her cousin who was a bus driver, not screaming in horror like his passengers.” Through all her hardship of searching for her identity, Grace finally finds a new lease on life in filmmaking, moving forward like snails do. Snails are a metaphor for Grace’s life, as Pinky writes in her letter, “Life can only be understood backwards. But we have to live it forwards. Snails never go back over their trails. Always moving forward. Time for you to leave some glittering snail trails.”
While certainly not for younger children as there are some scenes of claymation nudity and violence, Memoir of a Snail is a joyful and teary trek through life about two eccentric twins, Gracie and Gilbert, searching for their sense of identity, that should appeal to adults and older teenagers alike. Memoir of a Snail was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award, won the Cristal Award for Best Feature at Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and numerous other festival awards at BFI London (UK), Mill Valley (California), Ottawa (Canada), and Sitges (Spain), and was my favorite film of 2024 due to its creativity and storytelling.
▶ Click here to get your copy of Memoir of a Snail on Blu-ray & DVD.
Lily Topples The World
Adopted at one-year-old from a Chinese orphanage, Lily Hevesh was the only Asian-American growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, often leaving her feeling isolated. Jeremy Workman’s documentary Lily Topples the World captures Lily finding her passion and sense of belonging in the obscure male-dominated domino toppling community. Lily finds her sense of identity filming her elaborate domino toppling projects that eventually results in over 1 billion YouTube views and leads her to develop her own brand of dominoes, working closely on aspects like material.
Lily goes on to work on projects with Will Smith in the film Collateral Beauty, Katy Perry, YouTuber Casey Neistat, a variety of corporate clients, and is featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Lily finds her identity as one of the world’s premier professional domino toppling artists. Lily Topples The World was executed produced by Kelly Marie Tran (The Wedding Banquet, Star Wars: The Last Jedi & The Rise of the Skywalker), won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW, and screened at numerous festivals including Cleveland, Cordillera, San Francisco, and Woodstock’s Summer Drive-In Series. Lily’s story can inspire innovation, discovering one’s passion, and how to make a living off of what one loves.
▶ Stream Lily Topples the World on HBO Max & Discovery+.
Dear White People
Racial identity is one of the prevalent themes explored in Justin Simien's debut feature film Dear White People. In her breakout role, Tessa Thompson plays biracial “Dear White People” radio host and aspiring filmmaker Samantha “Sam” White who’s trapped between the worlds of black and white at the mostly white prestigious Ivy League Winchester University, a white father and boyfriend, and lives in the historically black Armstrong-Parker House. Sam wins the head of the Armstrong-Parker House and reluctantly steps up as the leader of the black caucus on campus fighting for equal rights against a clearly racist administration.
Many characters deal with identity and belonging, like Lionel Higgins (Abbott Elementary and Everybody Hates Chris’ Tyler James Williams) who feels like he doesn’t belong to any of the cliques as a gay black journalist, until an editor at The Independent approaches him and mentors his writing. Troy Fairbanks (Brandon P. Bell) has the pressures of distinguishing himself with pressures from his father Dean Fairbanks (Dennis Haysbert), who not only wants his son to strive for excellence but also to date Winchester President Fletcher’s white daughter Sophie (Brittany Curran) due to years of rivalry. This all forces Troy to put his passion to pursue comedy on the backburner. Vlogger Coco Connors (Teyonah Parris) looks to distinguish herself to stand out for a reality TV show and finds her voice by attacking Sam and white girls’ interactions with her. In addition, Winchester itself is searching for its identity in the middle of a funding crisis. All of these stories converge in a blatantly racist cultural appropriation frat party that unfortunately mirrors real events that have happened across the country, shown in an epilogue of news stories during the credits.
Dear White People hits just as hard today as it did upon release and has since been adapted into an award-winning four-season Netflix series that’s just as good. There are certainly numerous topics for a post-screening discussion including racial identity, cultural appropriating, journalism, finding your voice in filmmaking, and university values.
▶ Click here to read our full review of Dear White People.
▶ Click here to get your copy of Dear White People on Blu-ray & DVD.
The Eagle Huntress
For over a thousand years, nomads in the Mongolian Altai Mountains have used golden eagles to hunt for food and fur through harsh winters, handing down the precious eagle hunting skill from father to son. Now, 13-year-old Aisholpan Nurgaiv will be the first female to compete in the Golden Eagle Festival challenging 70 seasoned eagle hunters, years of tradition, and conservative misogynistic elders who don’t believe women can be eagle hunters because they are “weaker and more fragile.” Otto Bell’s thrilling audience pleasing documentary The Eagle Huntress captures breathtaking shots of the picturesque mountains as Aisholpan’s father Rys supports and trains his brave and courageous daughter for the competition, and later takes her eagle hunting in the freezing snowy landscape. Aisholpan shows that if one embraces their identity, they can achieve their dreams.
When I first saw The Eagle Huntress premiere at Sundance, Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley had just come on as an Executive Producer and later recorded narration to replace some explanatory title cards, and while few and far between, her narration does make the film more accessible. Later, controversy surrounding the documentary surfaced questioning if the Kazakh community really was as male dominated as shown in Bell’s film and if scenes were staged. Bell disputes the staged scenes claim in Steven Mulvey’s article “Is the Eagle Huntress really a documentary?” (BBC News), and historian Adrienne Mayor points out, “Strong women have always been part of the venerable Kazakh nomad heritage and girls were never forbidden to train eagles… As the first girl to compete in the Ulgii eagle festival, [Aisholpan’s] achievements are truly impressive,” (The Eagle Huntress: Ancient Traditions and New Generations). The controversy can be used for discussions post-community or academic screenings, with topics including the ethics of documentary filmmaking and cultural representation. Despite these issues that surfaced, The Eagle Huntress is still a strong film to use in discussions on identity and self-discovery. Sony Pictures Classics has distribution rights for North America, Latin America, Germany, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia and Asia.
▶ Click here to read our full review of The Eagle Huntress.
▶ Click here to get your copy of The Eagle Huntress on Blu-ray & DVD.
Billy Elliot
Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader) burst onto the scene with Billy Elliot with a brilliant performance by Jamie Bell who won a BAFTA for his debut film role. Set in the fictional mining town of Everington in Northeast England in 1984, Billy comes from a working class family of miners, and his father Jackie (Gary Lewis) and older brother Tony (Jamie Draven) are currently on strike. With money stretched thin, Jackie pays for Billy’s boxing lessons, but what Billy discovers is that he wants to learn ballet. Billy is aided by his stern cigarette-smoking ballet teacher Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters) who believes in his talent so much that she submits him for an audition at the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London. But Billy has to fight for his identity as a ballet dancer against his bully father, belligerent brother, and much of the small town that doesn’t believe boys should be dancers. Billy’s best friend Michael (Stuart Wells) also searches for his identity and the courage to come out as gay in his machismo town.
Billy Elliot is bolstered by an energetic soundtrack including “Children of the Revolution” and “I Love to Boogie” by glam rock band T. Rex capturing the time period, “London Calling” by The Clash capturing the turmoil of the strike and Billy’s struggle to pursue his passion, and “A Town Called Malice” by The Jam during the pinnacle most memorable scene of Billy dancing on a rooftop, steps and in the streets. By the end, Billy has found his place of belonging when he (now played by renowned ballet dancer Adam Cooper) performs in Swan Lake at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London’s West End. London was calling Billy, he found his identity on the ballet stage, pursued his passion, and now even his working class father and brother are impressed. Billy Elliot is a fantastic film for community screenings, especially for teenagers, to show how pursuing your dreams can lead to excellence, and for parents to foster understanding and support of their children’s dreams.
▶ Click here to read our full review of Billy Elliot.
▶ Click here to get your copy of Billy Elliot on Blu-ray & DVD.
We Can Be Heroes
Every summer for one week, a group of tweens and teenagers attend The Wayfinder Experience’s LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing) camp in New York’s Hudson Valley to play an immersive adventure game set in a fantasy world of their own creation. Carina Mia Wong and Alex Simmons’ award-winning documentary We Can Be Heroes captures the LARP camp during Wayfinder’s 20th Anniversary following Cloud (11), Dexter (15), Abby (17), and Miranda (18). Each of these fantasy LARPers deal with issues like aggression, anxiety, autism, unrequited love, and illness, but through camaraderie and their love of role playing, they find belonging amongst each other. Even some of the counselors like Judson began by attending the Wayfinder Experience when he was younger. Wong and Simmons capture cinematic views of the Wayfinder camp with overhead shots and changing different ratios throughout to distinguish between the LARPers being in the fantasy world of the game versus the real life moments outside of their characters.
Woodstock Film Festival 2024: L to R: Judd Taylor (Q&A Moderator), Alex Simmons (Director), Judson (Subject, Wayfinder Counselor), Carina Mia Wong (Director)
We Can Be Heroes won the Special Jury Award for Bravery and Empathy at SXSW, the Audience Award at Woodstock Film Festival, Best Feature Documentary at Nevada City Film Festival, and also screened at Seattle International Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest (England), Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival (Colorado), and Mountainfilm Festival (Colorado). A community screening could entail inviting a local LARP group to attend and even request them to bring some of their LARPing gear for photo opportunities, as the Wayfinders did for the Woodstock screening (where I moderated a Q&A with six subject and crew attendees from the film). This could also engage tweens and teens to join a local LARP camp, and it could be beneficial to have a list of them in the area. Tribeca Films has distribution rights.
▶ Click here to buy or rent a digital copy of We Can Be Heroes.
This curated selection of films shows how in embracing one’s identity, finding belonging in a supportive community, and discovering a talent one is passionate about provides a sense of accomplishment and happiness. These films could be programmed individually or as a series for community or academic screenings to foster embracing the qualities that make people stand out and to help them discover their passion, showing that we can be heroes if we embrace the identity that makes us unique. Grace finds a voice in filmmaking and getting over the past, as does Sam with filmmaking; Lionel through journalism; Aisholpan with eagle hunting; Billy with ballet dancing; and Abby, Dexter, and Miranda find their community in LARPing. What passion can you help your audience discover? Cue David Bowie's “Heroes,” a theme song of sorts for this series of films that could work well in a trailer for it.
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