During the period immediately preceding WWII, a number of films about children were made, a form of protest (according to Donald Richie in “Japanese Cinema”) against the traditional, or things-as-they-are, which were not good. The best of these were by Hiroshi Shimizu, whose works were not only about children but attempted to capture the child's point of view to the exclusion of the adult's.
Children in the Wind is probably Shimizu's most well known film. It is the story of two brothers who are separated when their father is falsely accused of forgery and arrested. The boys take badly to their separation - one goes so far as to run away with the circus - but eventually manage to prove their father's innocence.