"YAYA - A Life" is a social drama with a length of about 10 minutes, based on a true case from 2013 ("The Case Yagmur"). The idea comes from the Berlin based director Benjamin Bayer, who also wrote the screenplay.
The film tells the story of the girl Yaya, who grows up in a big city in stressful family circumstances. Her life is threatened from the very beginning:
Even as a toddler, Yaya learns about dangers threatening her from her overtaxed and violent mother as well as the helpless and inactive reactions of the people around her.
In this hopeless situation, however, Yaya's courage and her inextinguishable will to live are revealed when she succeeds in making contact with a magical animal that begins to manifest itself more and more strongly in the world of Yaya's expressive drawings as a protective demon.
At the age of 7, Yaya's situation comes to a head. Her mother's violence escalates more and more frequently.
Yaya's desperate struggle develops into a dramatic race between the increasingly brutal attacks on her life and the timely arrival of the magical animal, which can still change everything for the better.