Heidelberg - a nightmare for young rappers. That’s how the 13-year-old Morris experiences the German small town idyl. After the death of his mother, Morris moves from New York to his father in the German province. Here, the slightly overweight, black teen gets more attention than he is comfortable with. Morris gets bullied by his classmates and the only real human contact he has is with his widowed father Curtis, with whom he shares the passion for hip-hop, and his German teacher Inka. She advises him to try his luck in a youth club. There, he has an instant crush on the unapproachable Katrin, who is just as fed up of the bourgeoise Heidelberg as Morris is - and who eventually invites him on a daring roadtrip to Frankfurt. *Chad Hartigan's* realistic tour-de-force about the often difficult road to adulthood lives off the immediate proximity to his protagonist. Sensitively, he conveys to the viewer the feeling of being different. Rightly, this film won two awards at the renowned Sundance Film Festival. *_MORRIS FROM AMERICA_* is currently on the Longlist of the _Deutscher Filmpreis_ and has been distinguished as "very valuable" by the _Deutsche Film- & Medienbewertung_. From the jury's statement: "A film that reflects growing up from an uncostumary perspective and because it plays with clichés in a clever way. A coming-of-age story full of feeling, wit and irony." _“But the heart of the movie is the relationship between Morris and Curtis, and Hartigan excels at testing its soft spots and vulnerabilities; for their part, Christmas (a terrific discovery) and Robinson strike so many wonderfully varied notes that an entire feature could conceivably be cobbled together from their back-and-forth alone. The work of a filmmaker who knows how to listen to his characters, Morris from America shows how authentic communication becomes its own form of freestyle.”_ JUSTIN CHANG, VARIETY