Little Heaven
Right in the heart of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is a small orphanage called 'Little Heaven'. One of the orphans, Lydia, is 13 today. A truly joyful event, because she can now move to the ‘other house‘ where all of the ‘big kids’ live. Unfortunately this special day is overshadowed by the shocking news delivered to her by the head nurse: Lydia is HIV positive. In spite of this sad news, Lydia has no intention of sitting at home being depressed. She wants to live, and to dream. This is why as soon as she arrives into the room of the new orphanage, she hangs her motto above her bed: “I want to be happy every day”.
Deze documentaire gaat door merg en been - De Morgen
The titular orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, provides the setting and subject of the quietly affecting docu - Variety
director Lieven Corthouts keeps the film incredibly upbeat, appropriately paying mind to the girl’s mantra of trying to be happy every day - Movies.com
Lieven Corthouts is a self-taught filmmaker who travelled the world before living in Ethiopia for 10 years. There he made 2 feature documentaries: My Future and Little Heaven. Both films are about teenagers and their fight to get further up in life, brought in a very intimate and optimistic way.
Later, Lieven has released the feature length documentary The Invisible City [Kakuma] in April 2016 and his crossmedia project Find Me in Kakuma in 2017.
written & directed by
Lieven Corthouts
cinematography
Lieven Corthouts
edited by
Jan De Coster
music
Bert Joris
Mulatu Astatko
international sales
Taskovski Films
World premiere IDFA
Amsterdam,Netherlands, 2011
Awards
Special mention Docville
Leuven, Belgium, 2012
Best film award at Miradasdoc
Spain, 2012
audience award Anûû-rû âboro
New Zeeland, 2012
Festivals
official selection Movies That Matter
The Hague, Netherlands, 2012
official selection Opendoek festival
Turnhout, Belgium, 2012
official selection Planete +Doc Film Festival
Warsaw & Wroclav, Poland, 2012
official selection Human Rights Watch Film Festival
London (UK) & New York (USA), 2012
official selection Addis Film Festival
Ethiopia, 2012
official selection Seoul Human Rights Film Festival
South-Korea, 2012
official selection L´Alternativa Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona
Spain, 2012
official selection Filmfestival Oostende
Belgium, 2012
official selection Anthropological Film Festival,
Tel Aviv, 2012
official selection Festroia International Film Festival
Spain, 2012
official selection Anûû-rû âboro
New Zeeland, 2012
distribution
sold to RAI (Italy), Channel 8 (Israel)
Theatrical distributed in Belgium and in the US and Canada by Human Right Watch
Distributed in Ethiopia thanks to the the Bertha Britdoc Connect Fund
an Off World production
in co-production with
Lichtpunt
with the support from
Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF|FILM)
DGD - The Belgian Development Cooperation