An exploration into why some children are severely damaged by early adversity while others are able to thrive. By revisiting childhood trauma victims profiled decades ago, we learn how their experiences shaped their lives as adults.
Related Movies
The Thick Dark Fog (2011)
Walter Littlemoon attended a federal Indian boarding school in South Dakota sixty years ago. The mission of many of these schools in 1950, was still to “kill the Indian and save the man.” The children were beaten, humiliated or abused if they spoke their language or expressed their culture or native identity in any way. The trauma led many to alcoholism and violence in adulthood. At age 58, Walter began writing his memoirs as a way to explain his own abusive behaviors to his estranged children, but he could not complete the project without confronting the “thick dark fog” of his past so he could heal.
This Is Paris (2020)
Meet the real Paris Hilton for the very first time as she embarks on a journey of healing and reflection, reclaiming her true identity along the way.
When the Road Ends (2020)
Growing up in poverty as a child, Dylan dreamt of travelling the world on a motorcycle. Many years later he broke the shackles of a normal life and took to the road. After journeying 200,000km across four continents, the road from Panama to Colombia comes to an end, swallowed up by an impenetrable jungle. Dylan has no choice but to take to the sea, building a raft powered by his motorcycle engine in the hope of reaching Colombia's road network 700km away. He must brave strong ocean currents and storm batterings in his journey from Central to South America.—Journeyman Pictures
Obaida (2019)
OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.
Hexenkinder (2020)
The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
The State of Texas vs. Melissa (2021)
Melissa Lucio was the first Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas. For ten years she has been awaiting her fate, and now faces her last appeal.
The Family (2016)
Anne Hamilton-Byrne was beautiful, charismatic and delusional. She was also incredibly dangerous. Convinced she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, Hamilton-Byrne headed an apocalyptic sect called The Family, which was prominent in Melbourne from the 1960s through to the 1990s. With her husband Bill, she acquired numerous children – some through adoption scams, some born to cult members – and raised them as her own. Isolated from the outside world, the children were dressed in matching outfits, had identical dyed blonde hair, and were allegedly beaten, starved and injected with LSD. Taught that Hamilton-Byrne was both their mother and the messiah, the children were eventually rescued during a police raid in 1987, but their trauma had only just begun.
Sugarcane (2024)
An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
Girl in the Picture (2022)
A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all.
Wrestling Ghosts (2018)
Unable to understand why parenting seems like a constant uphill battle, an emotionally exhausted mother who can’t connect with her two young sons courageously confronts the events of her own traumatic childhood.
The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo (2023)
For the first time, complainants against La Luz del Mundo megachurch leaders expose the abuses they suffered through exclusive interviews.
Deadly Secrets: The Lost Children of Dozier (2016)
The Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida was supposed to be a place where troubled kids could go to straighten out their lives. What these boys found there would instead leave lasting scars and dozens of unexplained deaths. In Deadly Secrets, we follow the work of forensic anthropologist Dr. Erin Kimmerle from the University of South Florida, who has made it her personal mission to uncover the truth behind these mysterious deaths and disappearances. With unprecedented access to family members, photography and old records, Dr. Kimmerle and reporter Ben Montgomery expose the truth behind Dozier's missing boys, providing closure to families that have been haunted by this nightmare for decades.
Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare (2023)
Out-of-control teens across America were sent to a therapy camp in the harsh Utah desert. The conditions were brutal, but the staff were even worse.
Must Read After My Death (2007)
A grandmother dies and leaves behind hours of secret film and audio recordings as well as an envelope with the words “Must read after my death,” which reveal a dark history for her family to discover.
Thieves of Innocence (2005)
Every year in Quebec, 25,000 reports of children being beaten, sexually abused or abandoned are retained by the Directorate of Youth Protection. And nearly 40% of babies who die in the province to die because of the violence of their parents. This explains the fact that nearly 30,000 children are supported by the DPJ until the age of 18. But this government agency is in a position to meet the needs of young people? Journalist and documentary filmmaker Paul Arcand presents the testimonies of children and adult victims of abuse of all kinds, and interviews politicians, social workers and members of the judiciary on their perception of the problem. In addition, Arcand denounces the carelessness of a bureaucratic system that does not always seem to be concerned about the well-being of those for whom they are responsible.
