Koschka (2026)
Koschka, Bernd Sahling's children's film, is a sweet and perfectly decent little thing that I nonetheless found hard to feel strongly about. I caught it at the BFI London Film Festival, and it is warm, well-meaning and clearly made with care for its young audience, but it is also so familiar in its beats that it never quite rises above the pleasantly average. Two and a half stars.
The story is simplicity itself, which is no bad thing for a film pitched at this age group. Young Jan takes in a stray cat, names her Koschka, and sets about caring for her alongside his friends, running into one or two small complications as he goes, not least when the cat turns out to have a litter of kittens and the children start wondering where she came from in the first place. It is a gentle tale of responsibility, friendship and looking after something smaller than yourself, told at a child's eye level and with a child's priorities.
There is real craft in the making. The young cast are genuinely good, natural and likeable in a way that child actors often are not, and there are touching moments dotted throughout that land more softly than you might expect. The soundtrack is lovely too, lending the whole thing a cosy, heartfelt warmth. You can see why it has done the rounds of children's festivals and picked up recognition along the way.
The trouble, for me, is that it is simply very generic. Watching it as an adult, it felt almost exactly like one of those earnest direct-to-television kids' movies I would have half-watched on Nickelodeon as a child, competent and kind-hearted but entirely predictable, hitting every expected note on the way to its gentle resolution. There is nothing here to surprise you, and little to hold an older viewer's attention beyond a general fondness for the kids and the cat.
Two and a half stars. Koschka is a tender, nicely performed and good-hearted little film that its target audience of young children will likely enjoy a great deal, and there is genuine sweetness in it. As a piece of cinema for anyone much older, though, it is comfortably average, the kind of warm, forgettable watch that does exactly what it sets out to do without ever reaching for anything more.
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