There are not many films that portray adoption and foster parenting in a positive light. CHOSEN does just that! This multi-plot film tells several incredible true stories of how one community makes a difference in the lives of foster kids.
A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.
Bonnie, a nine-year-old single child, is part of a family of three living in the Netherlands. They have a love of elephants, passed on by Bonnie's grandfather's grandfather who worked on a game reserve in Africa, and Bonnie feels that she instinctively does things like an elephant as a result. Her single mother, Lis, is bi-polar and at times spends days on end without even getting out of bed. Then there are other times when she will manically do wild acts, such as impromptu dancing in public. As a result, Bonnie's sturdy and stable grandmother must hold the family together by doing all the cooking, etc. After her grandmother is killed by a car, Bonnie becomes the most responsible family member and struggles with preparing meals and getting her reluctant mother to take her medication. She also must dodge Jorien, a social worker who is attempting to place her in a foster home.
Young Tyrone embarks on a fulfilling journey as an artist following a tumultuous start in life, subjected to horrific abuse in a foster home that violated their duty of care.
After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.
Fresh out of foster care at age 18, a young drifter turns to petty crime to survive, and discovers an impossible love in an unlikely friend.
Tommy, 10 years old, is well known by Social Services. He is considered a danger to society. Gilles, his guardian at this halfway house, sees potential for redemption in this kid driven by violence.
Lucy is eleven years old. Having been neglected by her estranged mother and father, she is placed in a children's home. Through her eyes, we follow her struggle to cope with the system; her only saving being her self-belief and certainty that she is being watched over and protected by the holy spirit.
Thelma, together with her husband Dado and teenage sons Gerald and Yuri, are a poor urban family hired by a local foster care facility to provide temporary home and care to abandoned babies pending the latter's formal adoption.
In 1950, amidst the ravages of the Korean War, Sergeant Süleyman stumbles upon a a half-frozen little girl, with no parents and no help in sight and he risks his own life to save her, smuggling her into his army base and out of harm’s way.
A young Texan mother who loses her child to foster care begins smuggling Mexicans across the border.
Three postal workers and their dysfunctional families interact over cups of tea and Sunday dinner.
A married teenager sets out to find his long-lost brother and sister years after all three had been placed with different families following their abandonment by their migrant worker parents. Luckily, he finds a compassionate social worker who, at first reluctantly, decides to help him cut through the bureaucratic red tape.
David's comfortable world is turned upside down when his birth mother Melissa unexpectedly reaches out, longing to meet the eighteen year old son she's only held once.
A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.
Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.
An African American widow with two kids who has so much love to give, she often fosters children who need a home. She finds out that Peter and Rachel, the white siblings she fostered twice before, fled from their latest foster home.
On the verge of aging out of foster care, seventeen year old Mercedes Harper needs money and she needs it now. She manipulates Denver Thomas, a former high school classmate (who happens to have a massive crush on her) to help her plan and execute a bank robbery.
Cathy, 6, is taken by a social worker to a foster home in the countryside, where she slowly gets used to the strict rules imposed by her foster mother Réjeanne. Fortunately, her foster father, Reynald, is kind and gentle with the girl and patiently helps her break through her shell. Kayla, 12, is sent to a group home where she gets to know Morgane, a rebellious teenager who’s planning to run away. At about the same time, Manu is released from the system on the day she turns 18, but she finds it difficult to adjust to her solitary existence outside of the system. All four meet up at a reception honoring a foster family with whom they’ve all previously lived.
A grieving mother who suffered the tragic loss of her daughter must decide if she can provide a loving home to a child who's lost her parents.