Last night I was really moved by a powerful documentary called Children Underground, in an uneasy and thought-provoking way, and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind being really disturbed by films.
The official info about the movie can be found here, but the long and the short of it is that a filmmaker chose to follow six or eight homeless children living in a subway station in Bucharest.
The back story is part of what's killer. Basically, Nicolae Ceauescu , the head of the Communist party in Romania from 1965 to 1989, at some point outlawed birth control so that he could increase the nation's workforce. So Romanians had children coming out their ears. And many of them were unwanted, and with the fall of communism and the dissolution of the economy as Romanians knew it, many of them could not be cared for -- either by their parents or the government. So tons of them are homeless.
The kids range in age from about 8 to 16, and suffer from a variety of problems -- most are beaten, most are addicted to paint fumes, and it's unclear if any of them have additional mental problems beyond being a child with no home. But they are charming, honest, and most of all, kids.
It's really intense, and almost appalling. And I can only imagine it's because of this movie that I had the weird-ass dreams I had last night. But that's a whole nother story.
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