2021-01-27
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"It’s not easy to find a foster family for you," an orphanage supervisor explains to nine-year-old Alicia. "After all, you are a very special girl." Alicia is crying. "I’m not special. I’m just a girl." This disturbing scene sets the tone for this film about Alicia, who was taken away from her teenage mother by the Child Welfare Bureau when she was 12 months old. She’s been living in an orphanage since the age of five, and they have never managed to find a foster family for her. In Alicia, we watch as she becomes a teenager, still craving safety and love. Over the course of three years, filmmaker Maasja Ooms follows her daily life up close. Alicia's yearning and powerlessness are palpable in these observations, which painfully reveal the effects of having no prospects.
THE DEPARTMENT is a feature documentary which takes us inside the never-before-seen child protection system at work in NSW. Filmed in an observational style, it follows caseworkers across the state as they navigate the complexities of keeping children safe in families experiencing domestic violence, addiction, poverty, mental health issues and intergenerational trauma.
In 1942, in an occupied Paris, the apolitical grocer Edmond Batignole lives with his wife and daughter in a small apartment in the building of his grocery. When his future son-in-law and collaborator of the German Pierre-Jean Lamour calls the Nazis to arrest the Jewish Bernstein family, they move to the confiscated apartment. Some days later, the young Simon Bernstein escapes from the Germans and comes to his former home. When Batignole finds him, he feels sorry for the boy and lodges him, hiding Simon from Pierre-Jean and also from his wife. Later, two cousins of Simon meet him in the cellar of the grocery. When Pierre-Jean finds the children, Batignole decides to travel with the children to Switzerland.
During World War II, South Sea beachcomber Walter Eckland is persuaded to spy on planes passing over his island. He gets more than he bargained for as schoolteacher Catherine Frenau arrives on the run from the Japanese with her pupils in tow!
Once upon a time there was Louise and her friend, the magician. But his last trick left a bitter taste in her mouth. He disappeared in a curtain of smoke… never to appear again. This is too much for the young woman. Devastated by endless grief, Louise is sent to a psychiatric asylum, resigned to the idea that she will swallow pills till the end of her days. Yet nine months later she gives birth to a child who is likely to have a big problem for his future class pictures, since he’s invisible. But Louise doesn’t care. He’s her angel and, wanting to protect him from this cruel world, she decides to keep his existence a secret. Years later, Louise’s angel has grown up. He even managed to find a girlfriend; Madeleine. The two become inseparable, for Madeleine never judges him. And for good reason: she’s blind.
Angelina lives in a big city on the sea coast, where handsome men and beautiful women are strolling the streets with only one purpose: to have fun, flirt and love. But Angelina, being pretty, intelligent, and nice, finds herself lonely. She is a police officer and her job is helping abandoned kids, orphans, and troubled youngsters. One day one of her charges, a little boy, explains to Angelina how lonely, dull and useless she is. Those words have been bothering her ever since, and she decides to change herself.. Angelina starts her way through the darkness…
Masaru Aso was the lab assistant of geneticist Doctor Mochizuki, used as one of his experiments related the creation of the Neo Organism, enabling him to transform into a grasshopper-like being called Kamen Rider ZO. He fled into the mountainside and went into a coma before he was awakened by a telepathic call two years later with an unconscious urge to protect Hiroshi Mochizuki, the son of Doctor Mochizuki.
Wherever 9-year-old Benni ends up, she is expelled. She has become what child protection services call a “system crasher.” But she is not looking to change her ways, and has one goal: go back home to her mother. When anger management trainer Micha is hired to help, suddenly there is hope.
Barbara was caring for her grandchildren when her granddaughter Tiara was taken from school by welfare workers. Barbara fought for the next seven months to have her returned and finally won but the consequences of the removal on the family will never go away.
Birthday of a lonely woman. Her husband died years ago and her sons left her alone. She expects only a simple telephone call but nobody calls. She makes special meals but nobody visits. She prays all day but they are not heard.
What happens when a group of international artists travel to North Korea to create art like the regime have never seen before? While the world is on the verge of nuclear war, a group of Western contemporary artists are invited into the eye of the storm. The aim is to collaborate with North Korean artists in a creative exchange project displaying new and challenging art in a country where abstract art is forbidden.
Thomas Pynchon is a best-selling American novelist, who, unlike the vast majority of his peers, has eschewed the limelight with near-fanatical determination since the 1960s. This film compiles testimonies and evidence culled from Pynchon's fans and colleagues, investigating the enigmatic writer's background and speculating on his motivations.
Retrace Salvador Dalí’s obsession for science, which lasted his entire life. This can be seen in his paintings, which reflect every major discovery of the 20th Century. Even his signature is directly influenced by a scientific image.
The world couldn't keep its eyes off two athletes at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer - Nancy Kerrigan, the elegant brunette from the Northeast, and Tonya Harding, the feisty blonde engulfed in scandal. Just weeks before the Olympics on Jan. 6, 1994 at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Kerrigan was stunningly clubbed on the right knee by an unknown assailant and left wailing, "Why, why, why?" As the bizarre "why" mystery unraveled, it was revealed that Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had plotted the attack with his misfit friends to literally eliminate Kerrigan from the competition. Now two decades later, THE PRICE OF GOLD takes a fresh look through Harding's turbulent career and life at the spectacle that elevated the popularity of professional figure skating and has Harding still facing questions over what she knew and when she knew it.
North London band Wolf Alice have had a rise to prominence that might have been bends-inducing were it not for their tightness as a group. In summer of 2015, the deliciously dark, hook-and-riff-filled sound of their debut album, My Love Is Cool, inspired the NME to crown it: "the debut of the decade". As a measure of their impact, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Michael Winterbottom joined the band on the road, capturing 16 different gigs and daily life backstage.
Shot in Munich just a few weeks after it was taken by the American troops on April 30, 1945.
A legend of the Hollywood Golden Age, Gregory Peck (1916-2003) had an exemplary career, working under some of the greatest directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Raoul Walsh, Vincente Minnelli... Portrait of an actor with irresistible charm and strong political commitments.