Groomed

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Marcin Gutowski, the reporter of “Black and White” TVN24 showed in his report the unknown face of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz. He appears in it as a powerful hierarch, a gray eminence who can take care of the interests of the Church – understood in a specific way. Also when it comes to cases involving victims of pedophilia.

Polish documentary directed by Tomasz Sekielski about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland.