"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.
Taking part in The Voice Kids is already quite something, but for 11-year-old Merna it’s really some...

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...

On Fanø, Denmark, three young families have their lives brutally turned upside down when the municip...

With one in eight American children suffering a confirmed case of neglect or abuse by age 18, there ...
The story of Tim Reilly (84) whose son Matthew disappeared in1999. All that remains of him today are...

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

The secret life of a young World of Warcraft gamer is vividly reimagined when his online friends con...

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

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

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

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

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Mo...
A boy posts a message on the Internet seeking a suicide partner. A girl reads it and flies to meet h...

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

Filmmaker Heather Rae trains her lens on America's foster care system and the plight of children who...
Haunted by his violent past, the ambitious lawyer Anuol returns to his homeland, South Sudan, commit...

In a darkened classroom, the white cracked walls serve as a movie screen. We are in a remote mountai...

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