Children Underground

Abordand problema oamenilor strazii, documentarul Children Underground prezinta povestea tulburatoare a catorva "locatari" ai unei statii de metrou din Bucuresti - copii dependenti de aurolac, inraiti de greutati si lipsiti de capacitatea de a se adapta vietii intr-un adapost, asadar, sortiti sa revina mereu pe strazi.

"This astonishingly intimate documentary follows five homeless children in Romania, where the collapse of communism has led to a life on the street for 20,000 children.

From a 16-year-old girl who runs her gang with a mixture of brutality and compassion, to a small, intelligent, and remarkably articulate 12-year-old boy, these children seem at first feral and frightening–yet over the course of the movie their loneliness, desperation, and glimpses of hope will transform how you perceive them.

Make no mistake: this is difficult watching. As Children Underground explores the meager state resources to support these children and follows some of the children back to their difficult families, the scope of the problem becomes larger and more irresolvable.

But this documentary offers an unblinking and deeply compassionate insight into the extremes of human existence; you will not forget it easily"

Children Underground

March 2, 2002 -- Beneath the streets of Bucharest, thousands of Romanian children sleep on cardboard beds, beg for food and water and sniff toxic paint fumes to forget their troubles. They are the discarded legacy of the fall of a Communist regime -- and the focus of an Oscar-nominated documentary film, Children Underground.

Former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed abortion and contraception and ordered women to bear as many children as possible in his failed effort to increase the Romanian workforce. He was executed on Christmas Day, 1989, but today Romanians live with the fallout from that edict -- and as the film shows, the children are mostly ignored.