They are the children of the "dormitory towns": young punks on the outskirts of Moscow, in bleak communist concrete buildings, in empty corridors with flickering neon lights, in front of bare metallic doors, amidst an architecture of indifference. They are a lost generation, stuck between yesterday and tomorrow. They defy the elder generations' dreams of new prosperity with their unruly, aggressive song lyrics. Music alone can save them from their intense boredom. Life should be colourful, loud and fast. Their only fear is to get stuck, to go stale in the state of Russia, to miss the right moment to scarper. These kids don't fear riots, they get drunk by night and they return to their flats and bedrooms to sleep in the morning. We can sense the tender relationship between the film's protagonists in their "anti-pop songs". "Drink, have fun! Get yourself a mohawk and you will see what really matters." And that is friendship, vodka and above all: punk

Awards: City Duisburg Award, Stipendium Pierre and Yolande Perrault

Everyone wants a brother like Yazid. The whole of the French nation is united in front of their television sets watching the 2004 Football World Cup. In La Castellane, one of Marseille’s most infamous suburbs, all the day-to-day problems can be forgotten for a short while. Here, every child wants to be a big football star when they grow up and the grocer Monsieur Kanes is willing to help out everyone who wants to escape from this “ghettoised” neighbourhood. Twenty-two year old Fady was on the way to making it. We can feel his pain and disillusionment as all his dreams are shattered. Thirteen-year-old Christopher might well still make it, but his future is still uncertain. So far, only Yazid has succeeded. Yazid is Zinédine Zidane, the world’s best football player.

Football is King and for the children and grandchildren of immigrants let down by French society, football often seems the only way to escape their already mapped out destinies. More relevant than ever after the riots in France last autumn, Yazid’s Brothers is an empathic and playful film about the hopes and aspirations of young people on the field, and about their sense of disillusionment when their dreams fall apart.