"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.

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his lon...

Julia always said that her upbringing as a biological child in a foster family was a happy time. But...

Single mother Anna and her four children live in the front-line war zone of Donbas, Ukraine. While t...

A direct, uncompromising look into the complex machinery of Quebec’s youth protection services (know...

With one in eight American children suffering a confirmed case of neglect or abuse by age 18, there ...

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Mo...

The village of Yahidne in northern Ukraine is coming back to life. Dogs are running around. Gardens ...

A raw and telling portrait of a people left behind by the modern world, inspired by the work of phot...

More than sixty years after her birth, the Barbie doll is still as seductive as ever. Between stereo...

Saar is an HIV positive gay man living in London, where he found refuge from the religious kibbutz w...

Atlantis is known across the world as a myth. But is this really the truth? No matter what cultural ...

"COMPLEXion is a documentary that aims to unpack the hegemony of skin color globally and challenge t...

The power of fostering animals in need is undeniable. Hopalong Animal Rescue, based in Oakland, CA, ...

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They...

A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theate...

Cats might be cute but they are decimating the environment just like other invasive species. As ecol...

THE DEPARTMENT is a feature documentary which takes us inside the never-before-seen child protection...

At the consulting service for immigrants at the Avicenne Hospital in suburban Paris, we observe the ...