This film tells a moving tale that sees fact overlap with fiction as a real-life refugee plays a boy his own age, desperately trapped by circumstance that he sues his parents for giving birth to him.
The film from Lebanon (a country not normally associated with cinema), directed by the celebrated Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki, won the Jury Prize at Cannes. The child actor in the lead role, the astonishingly talented Zain Al Rafeea, was a Syrian migrant working as a delivery boy in Beirut when he was spotted by Labaki. He is now settled in Norway, and is already winning international awards too.

Filmed in the crowded streets of Beirut, Labaki’s film isn’t just realistic, it is an overlap of truth and make-believe that by its very existence is a comment on our times. 
The plot centres on a 12–year-old boy whose existence takes a tragic turn leading to a five-year jail term. The achingly sad story also involves a lawsuit brought by the boy against his impoverished parents for giving birth to more children than they can feed.
For a film filled with despair there are some unexpectedly lighthearted moments as well, But Capernaum is essentially commentary against social and government apathy in many countries even today.