J.A.C.E.

Jace is seven years old, an Albanian boy of Greek origin. He is orphaned twice: in Argyrokastron his entire foster family is killed in a massacre. He then falls into the hands of a gang that takes children abroad and sells them. The gang calls this business exporting; the word is theirs, not the film’s. In Athens Jace begs on street corners and later passes through institutions for young offenders. In the years after that he is pushed into other work in other hands. The film does not lay out what happened to him as spectacle; it follows what the boy is looking for. What he is looking for is simple: a family of his own, or at least a sense of belonging somewhere. Alban Ukaj and Stefania Goulioti appear in Menelaos Karamaghiolis’s hundred and forty two minute film, a coproduction of six countries, completed in 2012.