A man confronts the trauma of past sexual abuse as a boy by a Catholic priest only to find his decision shatters his relationships with his family, community and faith.
A documentary chronicling the shared experiences of prominent former child stars and the personal and professional price of fame and failure on a child.
Juana, Mar, and Eduardo tell their stories of abuse.
On the eve of the publication of a biography of Claude Jutra, one of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers in Quebec and Canada, a leak leaked to the press reveals that the book contains anonymous allegations of pedophile acts committed by the filmmaker. The rumor spread like lightning, suddenly igniting the entirety of Quebec society. By finding today some of the main witnesses propelled overnight into the heart of an unparalleled media tornado, the documentary reconstructs with archive images and other previously unpublished images, the sequence of events which led to a rewriting of the story.
Suffering child abuse marks you, conditions you and limits you. But what's next? 7:11 Cuarzo is a documentary short film that delves into the consequences and shows us various ways of experiencing grief after suffering it: the aftermath, the path after breaking the silence and destroying the stigma. It talks about the treatment and care of wounds with testimonials from those who have suffered abuse and aggression. Learning to live again when the most precious thing, innocence, is taken from you.
In 2016, French writer and photographer Carole Achache took her own life. After Carole's death, her daughter Mona Achache, a film director, discovers thousands of photos, letters and recordings that Carole left behind, but these buried secrets make her disappearance even more of an enigma. Through the power of filmmaking and the beauty of incarnation with the help of actress Marion Cotillard, the director brings her mother back to life to retrace her journey and find out who she really was.
Documentary re-examining the trial of Louise Woodward for the murder of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen 25 years on. The three parts focus on the prosecution case, the defence case and the impact of the case.
In A Town This Size introduces an Oklahoma town and its long-suppressed tragedy of childhood sexual abuse. The abuser, a prominent and trusted former pediatrician is, through this film and for the first time, held accountable for the actions he cleverly perpetrated. Stories are told through poignant first-person interviews with his victims, their families and professionals. This film brings to viewers an unnerving familiarity with the lifelong devastation resulting from this kind of abuse. Covering events in the 1960s and 1970s and continuing into present times, these personal stories devastate, frustrate and inspire. In A Town This Size moves audiences to confront child sexual abuse as a primary social issue and presses for changes in state statutes of limitation.
A poignant all-Indigenous English and Cree-English collaborative documentary that breaks long-held silences imposed upon indigenous children who were interned at the notoriously violent St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario. Use of a homemade electric chair at St. Anne's and the incorporation of testimony about student-on-student abuse makes this documentary stand apart from other films about Canadian residential school experiences. This film will serve as an Indigenous historical document wholly authored by Indigenous bodies and voices, those of the Survivors themselves.
Religieuses abusées, l'autre scandale de l'Église
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
An examination of the infamous thirty-year-old cold case of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch, the first missing child to appear on a milk carton. The film focuses on Johnny’s mother, Noreen Gosch, and her relentless quest to find the truth about what happened to her son. Along the way there have been mysterious sightings, bizarre revelations, and a confrontation with a person who claims to have helped abduct Johnny.
During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.
Terrified of stories of girls bleeding to death, young Tanzanian children face a terrible choice: whether to submit to female genital mutilation and child marriage, or risk their lives and run away from home. Rhobi Samwelly, a brave local hero, stands up to her community and provides a Safe House to protect the courageous girls. Although female genital mutilation (FGM) is harmful and illegal, in Northern Tanzania it is widely believed that girls' clitorises must be cut off to reduce promiscuity. Mutilated girls also demand twice the bride price as uncut girls. The chillingly named 'cutting season' runs through the school holidays in December. Now, some of the most courageous girls in the world, some as young as eight, are leaving everyone they love behind to run to a Safe House, not knowing if they'll ever see their families again.
An examination of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the film centres on Rod McLeod, a man who is suing the church for restitution after having been abused in childhood by priest William Hodgson “Hod” Marshall, and includes testimonial interviews from some of Marshall's other victims.
The jaw-dropping story of Carl Beech, a former nurse from Gloucester who claimed he had been sexually abused by a group of prominent men in the 1970s and 80s.
Digging through the vast collection of his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations.
Manuel Barbero, father of a sexual abuse victim, and Joaquin Benitez, the pederast who abuse the son of Manuel and 20 more children, are the main characters of this documentary. The director of the film approaches these key figures of this story with a work of journalistic investigation. For the first time, a pederast speaks and confesses with his face uncovered in a documentary.
In late 1955 and early 1956, the citizens of Boise, Idaho believed there was a menace in their midst. On Halloween, investigators arrested three men on charges of having sex with teenage boys. The investigators claimed the arrests were just the tip of the iceberg-they said hundreds of boys were being abused as part of a child sex ring. There was no such ring, but the result was a widespread investigation which some people consider a witch hunt. By the time the investigation ended, 16 men were charged. Countless other lives were also touched.In some cases, men implicated fled the area. At least one actually left the country. The investigation attracted attention in newspapers across the nation, including Time Magazine. The "Morals Drive" left scars which remain to this day.
Since the beginning of her career, Sinéad O’Connor has used her powerful voice to challenge the narratives she was surrounded by while growing up in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. Despite her agency, depth and perspective, O’Connor’s unflinching refusal to conform means that she has often been patronized and unfairly dismissed as an attention-seeking pop star.