Black Traces of Childhood (2025)

The Police Tapes

The Police Tapes is a 1977 documentary about a New York City police precinct in the South Bronx. The original ran ninety minutes and was produced for public television; a one-hour version later aired on ABC. Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time. They produced about 40 hours of videotape that they edited into a 90-minute documentary.

Waltz with Bashir

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

TMZ Presents: The Downfall of Diddy

A series of lawsuits and allegations have legendary rap mogul P. Diddy on the ropes. TMZ has the troubling inside story from people who were there.

Fuego

Xóchitl is an indigenous woman who must fight for her freedom before the birth of her baby, since she finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship. She will have to face a town full of prejudices and accomplices of her abuser. However, Xóchitl has the inner strength of her lineage, which will manifest itself in her favor.

The Damned of the Comnune

Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in 1871.

This Hits Home

This Hits Home is a feature length documentary that reveals the invisible and silent epidemic of permanent traumatic brain injury in women devastated by domestic violence. The intimate and compelling stories of courageous women, insights from lawmakers and domestic violence authorities, and the shocking revelations from world renowned experts combine to paint a chilling portrait of brain injury that forever changes the lives of one in every four women and their children.

Chicago 10

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

A Love Letter to My Sister

A brother and sister discuss domestic violence that has occurred by looking back at family photo albums.

Blush: An Extraordinary Voyage

For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.

A Better Man

Following a series of intimate conversations between a former couple who lived through two years of domestic abuse, A Better Man infuses new energy and possibility into the movement to end violence against women.

What Happened, Miss Simone?

The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.

Momsy

‘Over the course of several summer days in Split I talked to my mom about everything. I mean, really everything.’

Flee

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

American Hollow

This documentary follows the lives of the Bowling family as they fight to survive in dirt-poor Appalachia. Matriarch Iree has given birth to 13 children, but only two have left to seek better lives in Ohio while the rest have married and started their own impoverished families near home. Uneducated and unskilled, all are unemployed, and domestic violence and alcoholism pose serious problems. The filmmakers explore the family's relationships through interviews and footage of their daily lives.

Untold: Deal with the Devil

Christy Martin broke boundaries and noses as she rose in the boxing world, but her public persona belied personal demons, abuse and a threat on her life.

Chris Brown: A History of Violence

A biographical documentary that delves into the controversial personal life of iconic singer Chris Brown, charting his journey from a troubled childhood to global superstardom. It explores his violent public record, including allegations of domestic violence, assault charges and sexual misconduct, while questioning how a man with such a turbulent history maintains his celebrity status. With expert and cultural commentary layered throughout, the film offers thoughtful reflections on the cycle of abuse and its lasting psychological impact, shedding light on the experiences of survivors and the aftermath of their trauma.

Piece by Piece

A unique cinematic experience that invites audiences on a vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams. Told through the lens of LEGO® animation, turn up the volume on your imagination and witness the evolution of one of music's most innovative minds.

And So I Stayed

AND SO I STAYED is an award-winning documentary about survivors of abuse fighting for their lives and spending years behind bars. These women paid a steep price with long prison sentences, lost time with loved ones, and painful memories. Formerly incarcerated survivor-advocate Kim Dadou Brown, who met her wife while incarcerated, is a driving force in the passage of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA), a new law meant to prevent survivors from receiving harsh prison sentences for their acts of survival. Nikki Addimando, a mother of two young children, suffered the consequences when a judge didn’t follow the law’s guidelines. Tanisha Davis, a single mother who was ripped away from her son in 2013, is hopeful the new law is her way out of a harsh prison sentence.

Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story

The incredible true story of how Jelena Dokic became a tennis star while surviving war, bullying and extreme domestic violence at the hands of Damir Dokic, the tennis father from hell.

Loving Martha

Having broken free from the domestic violence she suffered during 39 years of marriage to her ex-husband Amando, Martha tells her granddaughter Daniela, who is beginning her career as a filmmaker, to make a film out of the personal memoirs in which she narrates her painful past. In this process, despite having gotten a divorce, for over 15 years her family has continued to pressure Martha into spending time with her abuser.

Silêncio das Inocentes

Plot unavailable

Afloat

"Afloat" is a short animated film on domestic abuse based on the poem "A Smile to Remember’"by Charles Bukowski. This is a story about courage, a story about staying afloat.

Beaten by My Boyfriend

Stacey Dooley goes behind closed doors and speaks to the now younger face of domestic violence. She questions victims and abusers to try and understand how deep the issues surrounding domestic abuse are for those who have survived and those currently experiencing the abuse.

Antonia's Line

After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.

Once Were Warriors

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

Throat Song

In a small town in the Canadian Arctic, Ippik, a young Inuit woman, suffers in an abusive relationship. She starts to heal when she connects with other victims of violence and finds her voice.

Runaways

Steve Moore is sixteen and lives with his younger sister, mother Cheryl and her boyfriend John, in a modest house in Bakersfield, California. An abusive and often intoxicated man, John rules the household, and though his attacks on Steve result in emergency hospital visits, Cheryl's loyalty is to her boyfriend. To protect her relationship with John, she "ditches" her son, having him arrested and locked in a correctional "mental" facility, before coercing her older brother Burt, who lives in Hollywood, to take him. Steve quickly discovers that Burt cannot even provide temporary lodging, but an administrator at his new high school directs him to a shelter for runaway kids where he soon learns to navigate his way.

The House of the Spirits

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.

Ardor

In revenge for her husband's infidelity, a young beautiful housewife, Mi-heun, starts an affair with an attractive young doctor, In-gyu. Despite her husband's efforts to regain her love and the disapproval by the conservative little town, Mi-huen gradually finds happiness and satisfaction in the affair and decides to turn her back on her quiet life.

A Second Chance

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

The Savages

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

Karla

Based on real events, Canada's most notorious serial killers, Paul Bernardo and wife Karla Homolka kidnap, sexually abuse, and murder three young girls.

L.A. Confidential

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.