After his Laotian village is leveled to make way for a dam, a 10-year-old boy leads his family and two new friends on a perilous journey to find a new home, then enters a rocket festival to prove he’s not bad luck. Australian writer-director Kim Mordaunt came to his debut fiction feature via a documentary, Bomb Harvest, about Laotian children who collect scrap metal from American bombs. Laos is reportedly the world’s most bombed country, per capita, and The Rocket conveys a strong sense of the devastation. It also shows a documentarian’s eye for the earthy rural culture, with its phallic talismans and animal sacrifices. “The Rocket” (2013, 100 min) is a feel-good success crafted with care.

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English subs