Nicaragua

An average of 400 children are born in Nicaragua every day, 100 of them to adolescent mothers. This documentary narrates the lives of three such adolescents: 14-year-old Kenia, from a poor neighborhood in Managua; 15-year-old Blanca, who lives deep in the mountains; and Viviana, a 16-year-old Miskito indigenous girl from the North Atlantic region.

The jungle madness known as Grissi Siknis is a contagious, natural syndrome that occurs among the Miskito of Eastern Central America, effecting mainly young women.  Symptoms include long periods of anxiety, nausea, dizziness, irrational anger and fear, interlaced with periods of frenzy in which the victims loses consciousness, and often  believes devils are beating them.

Having lived some twenty years, they are sentenced to another thirty in prison. The Island of Lost Children is the story of ten young inmates who participate in a video course inside the largest prison in Nicaragua. It is a trip to the depths of captivity. It is also the portrait of these “bad boys,” who took the wrong road because it was the only one open to them.