In this article I will follow the paths of friendship between children and adults in two films: Central Station, by Walter Salles (1998) and La Lengua de las Mariposas [Butterfly's Tongue], by José Luis Cuerda (1999). First, I will recall some issues about the topic of friendship, as well as its ethical, political and creative character, drawing on Michel Foucault's works. Then, I will analyze both films, seeking to show to what extent bonds between friends are translated, in a filmic way, as a result of the power of a relationship, and also of a child's possibility of empowering himself or herself and others. I thus seek to discuss friendship as an exercise of self-transformation, as a search for and creation of oneself - through practices that cannot be undertaken in solitude.
cinema; child; friendship