Social workers dispel myths about why children are removed from their biological parents, breaking down their overwhelming workload. Lawyers uncover the harsh reality of young children navigating the legal system. Advocacy organizations try to keep children safe and away from predators. An eclectic array of interviews from foster care alumni explore their connections (or lack thereof) with social workers, the fragile bond with each foster home, how trust can fall apart, and how those unable to adapt spent time in group homes. The film concludes with alumni success stories, working to remove the stigma of foster care.
Nothing Compares (2022)
Since the beginning of her career, Sinéad O’Connor has used her powerful voice to challenge the narratives she was surrounded by while growing up in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. Despite her agency, depth and perspective, O’Connor’s unflinching refusal to conform means that she has often been patronized and unfairly dismissed as an attention-seeking pop star.
The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech (2020)
The jaw-dropping story of Carl Beech, a former nurse from Gloucester who claimed he had been sexually abused by a group of prominent men in the 1970s and 80s.
Forever Yours (2011)
Forever Yours is a film about children who have been taken into custody. Through the children, their biological parents and foster parents, the film depicts love in everyday life. The film explores the invisible bond between a child and a biological parent. Even when a child is taken into custody, the yearning for closeness to the biological parents and need for their approval never seems to disappear. This longing is a form of loneliness that the foster parents struggle to overcome. The film describes the entire foster care process: a child being brought into a shelter home, a teenager’s everyday life in a foster family, and siblings preparing to return to their biological mother, after five years in a foster family.
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.
Detainment (2018)
Two ten year-old boys are detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler.
Tarnation (2003)
Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.
The Girl in the Cellar: 8 Years Underground (2023)
In 1998, Natascha Kampusch was abducted in broad daylight at the age of ten and held hostage in a basement for 3096 days. When she escaped in 2006, she was met with mistrust. Explores her story and how conspiracy theories have impacted her life.
The Killer Nanny: Did She Do It? (2022)
Documentary re-examining the trial of Louise Woodward for the murder of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen 25 years on. The three parts focus on the prosecution case, the defence case and the impact of the case.
Postcard to Daddy (2010)
As a child, Michael Stock was sexually abused - by his own father. 25 years later he is still looking for inner peace. In conversations with his family and friends and his own reflections, he paints an ever clearer, if contradictory picture of what happened and of the consequences for each of the family members. Old family films seem to show a happy family - excerpts from Michael's first feature film hint at his extreme adult life, overshadowed by his lifelong trauma. Yet in spite of the intense drama, the film doesn't have an atmosphere of anger and hatred but rather a surprising air of hope and love of life. Michael's aim is not to accuse the "perpetrator" but to understand. In the end, he takes his video "Postcard" to his father. With the camera running, he confronts him with his past.
In Jesus’ Name: Shattering the Silence of St. Anne's Residential School (2017)
A poignant all-Indigenous English and Cree-English collaborative documentary that breaks long-held silences imposed upon indigenous children who were interned at the notoriously violent St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario. Use of a homemade electric chair at St. Anne's and the incorporation of testimony about student-on-student abuse makes this documentary stand apart from other films about Canadian residential school experiences. This film will serve as an Indigenous historical document wholly authored by Indigenous bodies and voices, those of the Survivors themselves.
In the Name of Your Daughter (2018)
Terrified of stories of girls bleeding to death, young Tanzanian children face a terrible choice: whether to submit to female genital mutilation and child marriage, or risk their lives and run away from home. Rhobi Samwelly, a brave local hero, stands up to her community and provides a Safe House to protect the courageous girls. Although female genital mutilation (FGM) is harmful and illegal, in Northern Tanzania it is widely believed that girls' clitorises must be cut off to reduce promiscuity. Mutilated girls also demand twice the bride price as uncut girls. The chillingly named 'cutting season' runs through the school holidays in December. Now, some of the most courageous girls in the world, some as young as eight, are leaving everyone they love behind to run to a Safe House, not knowing if they'll ever see their families again.
Forged from Fire (NaN)
The story of how an Australian and international community of blacksmiths, welders, artists and volunteers responded to the devastating Black Saturday bush-fires by creating perhaps the nation's most ambitious public artwork and memorial – The Blacksmith's Tree, a three tonne, 9.8-meter tall stainless steel and copper gum tree.
Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017)
Child abuse, mental illness, and forbidden love converge in this mystery involving a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life that turned out to be a living nightmare.
Rewind (2019)
Digging through the vast collection of his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations.
Viols d'enfants : La fin du silence ? (1999)
Following the behavioral problems and progressive confessions of her two children Marie and Pierre, a mother decides to file a complaint against her husband for incest and membership in a pedophile sect. The report proposes a chronology of the judicial investigation with the testimonies of Marie and her mother, but also of the representatives of justice involved in the investigation.
Tough Love (2014)
Fighting to reunite with their children, 'Tough Love' chronicles the lives of two parents with cases in the United States child welfare system as they attempt to prove to the courts and the system that they deserve a second chance to be a parent and have a family.
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.