Realized Dreams

In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.

A talented group of orphaned children in Swaziland create a fictional heroine and send her on a dangerous quest.

Poignant postwar appeal for Britain’s Jewry to support orphaned Jewish children rescued from Europe.

An account of a young Italian boy who was taken in by a Canadian military unit during World War II.

Diary of an Elephant Orphan takes us through the struggles and turmoils of orphaned baby elephants and the people who have made it their life's mission to save them. Khanyisa is the newest addition to the elephant sanctuary.

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.

150 underprivileged and orphaned students in the remote jungle of Thailand attending the country's first democratic school prepare a special celebration to honor their remarkable adoptive mother on Mother's Day.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home. They spend winter nights trying to stay warm by huddling together on hot water pipes and most of their days are spent begging. Andrej has found himself here because of disagreements with his family. Kristina was driven into this way of life by the hatred of her stepmother and twelve-year-old Roma by the regular beatings he received from his constantly drunk father. "When it is worst, we try to make money for food by prostitution," admits ...

A visit to Peterlee, Co. Durham.

Second Chance tells a story of Ukrainian orphaned children and the Canadian volunteers who spend their summers working along side them. The film follows first time volunteer and filmmaker, Adriana Luhovy, as she learns about the children and becomes witness to their strengths and resilience. Converging in Yaremche in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, over 500 orphaned children come together from all over the country. At first quiet and fearful, they learn to trust one another and their counsellors. By countering heartbreaking statistics - 60% of orphaned girls are trafficked within the first year of leaving the orphanage; 50% of boys end up in jail; 10% commit suicide - the volunteers are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of orphaned Ukrainian children.

Tunahaki is the extraordinary story of nine gifted orphans who are acrobats. We follow their journey as an American volunteer takes them from Africa to study with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. They end up touring the States and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than enough to build a permanent home. But how have the kids' experiences in America affected them? And how will it change things back home in Tanzania? Tunahaki's heartfelt journey gives us something new to ponder as we reach across the world to help those less fortunate—is it always the right thing to do?

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.

La Babel des enfants perdus

Nearly 250,000 South Korean children were adopted to the West as “orphans” in the 60 years following the Korean War. Some to loving homes. Others to tragic ends. Raised in places where they looked like nobody else, many were told to forget their past and be grateful. But the innate desire to understand where you came from has led many Korean adoptees to search for their roots. In the process, they discover lies in their past and families they never knew existed. In this documentary series, correspondent Wei Du travels around the world to meet Korean adoptees and accompany a few on their journey to reclaim who they are. Together, they reveal how an “orphan rescue” mission separated families and erased the roots of hundreds of thousands.

This moving documentary profiles a former Buddhist monk who runs a home for orphaned children in the Himalayas, and his relationship with its newest arrival, troubled five-year-old Tashi.

A year in the life of children in the Province of Anhui in China, who have lost their parents to AIDS. Traditional obligations to family and village collide with terror of the disease.

Miao Miao, her brother Xiaolong and Xin Liao are some of the happy kids who live in the Sun Villages created by Mrs. Zhang Shuqin. But in reality they have a heavy past and present to cope with. As the other young dwellers there, they are the offspring of people sentenced to death. This documentary shows the lives and daily routine of these children and their benefactor over two years. Many of the people sentenced to death leave behind young orphans whom are not taken care of at all by social services, even when their families or relatives cannot afford to do it. Also, these vulnerable children are generally despised and rejected by the rest of the community – and are not eligible for adoption. One woman, Mrs. Zhang Shuqin, has decided to turn the children’s destiny into her life’s struggle. She has set up ten orphanages to raise them. In these orphanages, called Sun Villages, everybody works hard to offer the 'children of shame' a more positive future.

Tracing the footsteps of North Korean orphans who went to Poland during the Korean War, two women, one from the North and the other from the South, bond through the solidarity of wound and forge together a path toward healing.

Filmed in 1968, "Little Pioneers" examines the gap between socialist rhetoric and social reality by focusing on children excluded from state protection. Through close, unembellished observation, Želimir Žilnik documents young people living in slum conditions and surviving through informal and illegal means, using the film’s ironic title to underscore the contrast between official ideology and everyday life.

Myrjana, la valeur d'une femme