(U.S.; 60 min.) Children can improvise fun anywhere—as this colorful Nicaraguan slum documentary shows—before poverty and young parenthood grinds them down. Director Marcelo Bukin focuses on the bright smiles of young Josef, not the resigned mien of his uncle, who works in a cigar factory for $60 a month. Scenes of families living in a dump are particularly affecting. One mother says that 17 of her 25 children have died from “diarrhea and vomiting.” Yet the laughter of the children and their joy smearing finger paints supplied by an itinerant art teacher belie their parents’ hardscrabble lives. Eight-year-old Nauri, holding a paper microphone as she impersonates a TV interviewer, is a pint-sized raconteur. (DH)

Sat., March 5 at 11:30am, Camera 12; Tue., March 8 at 7pm, San Jose Rep; Sat., March 12 at 2:30pm, Camera 12