Official launch documentary ‘The Beginning of Life’

The Beginning of Life documents the lives of young children and their families across the world to help shine a light on the significance of the early years, and how a child’s environment during this formative stage can shape their cognitive, emotional and social development. The film features interviews with early childhood development experts from around the world and families of highly diverse cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds, including supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and Phula, a girl who cares for her siblings by herself in India.

Director Estela Renner explores how relationships in the early years of children’s lives are crucial to their development. “Emotional recollections for both good and evil have a much greater weight during this period, which is a time of formation, creation and structuring of individuals”, Estela says.

The Beginning of Life is produced by Maria Farinha Filmes in association with various partners, among which the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

“We supported The Beginning of Life to spread an urgent message: giving all children a good start in life is crucial to building peaceful, prosperous and creative societies — and it is the people in a young child’s life who make all the difference”, adds Michael Feigelson, the Foundation’s Executive Director.

Officially launched in Brazil on May 5th, the film premiered in São Paulo and is currently available for public exhibitions on the VIDEOCAMP platform. The official global launch will be on June 1st, when the film will be made available via various global video-on-demand platforms including Netflix and iTunes. The Beginning of Life will be dubbed in six languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Arabic and Chinese) and subtitled in another 21 languages.

Watch the trailer: