CHILDREN UNDERGROUND Documentary Competition

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, Edel Belzberg’s CHILDREN UNDERGROUND is a powerful and unflinching verite portrait of homeless children in Romania, giving voices and faces to one of Eastern Europe’s grimmest realities.

During his rule, Nicolai Ceaucescu implemented an ill-conceived “fertility campaign.” As a tragic result, thousands of children-orphans as well as runaways-are struggling to survive wherever and however they can. The film introduces us to five of these children, ranging in age from as young as eight to mid-teens, who make their home in the subway station at Piela Victoriei. With surprising and often brutal intimacy, the film reveals the dreams and daily routines of these lost children.

Recipient of the Radziwill Documentary Achievement at the 11th Annual Gotham Awards, Belzberg’s gut-wrenching, eye-opening film delves into a heretofore unseen world through images that we may wish to turn from, but which prove unforgettable.