Taking man's inhumanity to man as its central theme, 'Au Hasard Balthazar' traces the life of a donkey, christened Balthazar by a group of young children, from birth to death. Balthazar's story begins on a small farm in a rural district of France. Throughout his life he is owned by many of the locals, returning to some of them more than once, and is set various tasks, from drawing a carriage to performing in a circus, turning a grindstone to acting as a smuggler's means of transport. Some owners find out more...

A young working-class lad in a grim Northern mining town has no more ambition than to follow his dad down the pit. However he finds an injured young kestrel, which he nurses back to health and trains, an event which opens up a once bleak landscape for him. It's grim up there..... find out more...