A Girl's Day

What do people think of me? When will I be happy? These are the kinds of questions all teenagers ask themselves, but in this intimate film, a 19-year-old German named Yasmin manages to formulate thoughts in a remarkably thorough and thoughtful way. She is filmed at the employment agency and in her own new apartment, where she’s trying to work out who she is – and get to grips with her relationship with her mother, a drug addict. The extracts Yasmin reads from her diary provide a glimpse into her thoughts. After a lifetime of moving from one set of foster parents to another, she’s now searching for the meaning of happiness and loneliness. She realizes she has never experienced what “family” really means. How then can she ever start a family of her own? Just what does the future have in store for her? Will she do well in school? Will she fall in love? Will she go to college? In the background, the possibility looms that she will go down the wrong path. This candid portrait provides insight into the vulnerability and survival instinct of a courageous young woman. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)