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.
Jay O. Sanders
as Narrator (voice)
Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.
Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.
A young man born with Cerebral Palsy battles a paralyzed left hand, bullies and stereotypes about the disabled to defy the odds and make it as a rock and roll guitarist. Ultimately, sharing the stage with the very band that inspired him to start (or to achieve the impossible).
Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.
Penn State football icon Joe Paterno went from revered patriarch to reviled pariah. A look back, now, ten years after the Penn State sex abuse scandal.
The trembling starts in his neck when Markus gets closer to the images that have chased him for 49 years. Now he steers his motor home south, as far away from his past as possible.
An investigation into the original 1993 Michael Jackson allegations brought by the Chandler family.
An autobiographical, partly animated, documentary about a filmmaker striving for a better future as a survivor of childhood sexual assault.
Six survivors of sexual abuse speak of the consequences of growing up with the secret of their abuse.
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.
Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.
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.
Gives voice to the experiences of Irish institution survivors and focuses on the life and upbringing of one survivor, Anne Silke. Silke was fostered out of the St. Mary, Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam at the age of 9 to the Killileas, a prominent political family from Tuam. Untold Secrets recounts her often brutal and abusive treatment at the hands of her foster family and reveals never seen before interviews with fellow survivors. Although Silke is now deceased the documentary gives a posthumous voice to Anne and possibly some closure to her family.
An investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry.
When former child star Aaron Schwartz (Mighty Ducks, Heavyweights) returned to the acting world as an adult, he found himself always being asked this recurring question: 'how is he still normal having been a child star?' After seeing one too many sensationalized 'where are they now' publications he began to notice that being a child actor carried with it a stigma that seemed impossible to break. Aaron explores why the Stigma of being raised in Hollywood exists, and why child stars are so often misunderstood.
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.
Six men who were sexually abused by Catholic clergy as boys find empowerment by creating short films inspired by their trauma.
Two children accused parents and teachers of leading a paedophilic satanic cult, supposedly headquartered in secret rooms on the school premises. The story was not true. But once the fire was lit, it was hard to put out. Emily Turner’s film considers the real-world impact of an outrageous online conspiracy theory, exploring the importance of truth and the cost of lies.
