Zirkuskind (Circusboy) premiered in the Generation Kplus strand at Berlinale.
Young Santino has never been in the same place for long; he has been registered with multiple schools across Germany, and while he makes new friends at every school he attends, long-lasting friendships are difficult to find due to his nomadic lifestyle. For Santino, family is everything; it is his family that provides the love, friendship, and stability he needs. Julia Lemke and Anna Koch’s documentary, Zirkuskind or Circusboy, follows Santino and his family as they travel from town to town and school to school over a year.
Awarded a special mention in this year’s Generation Kplus strand at Berlinale, Lemke and Koch’s delicate, colourful, yet deep exploration of life on the road follows Santino’s travelling circus. It is a family circus rooted in history, where everyone plays a part, including Santino and his younger brother, who enjoys climbing trees and getting up to as much mischief as he can fit into one day. Zirkuskind is a documentary built on the lived experience of a family who entertains for a living, attempting to keep traditions alive that are slowly vanishing. It is a story of pride, history, hardship, and love.
Lemke and Koch’s imaginative and loving film captures the imagination of its younger audience through animation and Santino’s energetic narration while equally engaging adults; it’s a challenging balancing act, but one that is beautifully realised. Zirkuskind speaks directly to its younger audience through the excitement of Santino’s story while encouraging children to ask questions, explore different lifestyles and engage with history. At the same time, intergenerational learning, family bonds and belonging sit centre stage for adults, with Lemke and Koch never sugar-coating the challenges of circus life, the possible loneliness that comes from a nomadic life or the historical concerns about animal welfare, which have led to change to keep the show on the road.
In Santino’s travelling world of caravans, tents, colourful costumes, horses, and highly skilled acts, eighty-year-old Grandpa Ehe leads the family, a caring and loving man who has spent most of his life on the road. Ehe recounts his past, including the horrors of historical persecution, through beautiful short animations, his history and everyone who came before him, the glue that holds this travelling family together.
Kirkuskind (Circusboy) has much in common with Inma de Reyes’ documentary The Boy and the Suit of Lights, which premiered at Sheffield Doc Fest in 2024, as it explores the relationship between the past and present in a community built on tradition, history and family, and the risk of that disappearing as culture and attitudes outside of the family change. It is a risk Ehe and Santino’s mum and dad are more than aware of, and they feel confident they can overcome it. Yet, all the same, one wonders how long their travelling circus can survive in a world of IMAX screens, computer games and instant gratification, a world where storytelling and family history often now come second to quick and easy entertainment. A part of me hopes I’m wrong and that Santino will continue this tradition and, in time, tell his own kids his history and that of his dad and granddad as they learn a new skill and define their role in their circus family. But another part wonders whether Kirkuskind (Circusboy) is a glimpse of a way of life rapidly disappearing in an age where kids want circus acts to be bigger, more dangerous and even more spectacular than ever before, their appetites enlarged through shows like Britain’s Got Talent and West End experiences like The Greatest Showman Live.
Whatever the future holds, this delicate, colourful, and heartfelt exploration of circus life is a masterclass in children’s documentary-making that places Santino’s life, loves, and hopes in the centre of a brightly lit big top bursting with pride.
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