CASA FOR CHILDREN MOVIE LIST
Abuse |
A Mother's Love (Cancer Hoax Documentary) |
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Buck |
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The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez A boy's brutal murder and the public trials of his guardians and social workers prompt questions about the system's protection of vulnerable children. Six-part docuseries on Netflix. |
Addiction |
First Circle |
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The Pharmacist
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Losing Isaiah Newborn Isaiah is found in a dumpster with cocaine in his system. Three years later, a bitter custody battle develops between the fmaily who has adopted and raised him and the mother who has gone through rehab and says she never intended to give him up. |
Adoption/Foster Care |
Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption |
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The Blind Side The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football payer and first-round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family. |
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Martian Child Wanting to experience fatherhood, a man adopts a youngster who has an unusual crisis of identity, believing he is from Mars, and trouble arises when the man, who devotes himself to his strange son, begins to believe that the boy is indeed an alien. |
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Unlocking the Heart of Adoption This film bridges the gap between birth ad adoptive families through diverse personal stories of adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents in same race and transracial adoptions interwoven with the filmmaker's story as a birthmother revealing the enormous complexities in their lives with fascinating historical background. |
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Gimme Shelter Based on an inspiring true story. Pregnant teenager Apple runs from her abusive mother and attempts to find her father. After a horrific encounter with a pimp, Apple ends up in hospital and is sent to a shelter for pregnant teens that offers hope and redemption for its guests. |
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Camp To impress a potential client, financial advisor Ken Matthews signs up to be a counselor at a camp for kids in the foster system. Based on the true stories of real-life campers at Royal Family Kids summer camp, audiences will be inspired and find hope in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. |
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Short Term 12 Calm and competent, Grace is a young counselor at a California care unit for at-risk teens. However, her cool facade begins to crack in the pressure cooker atmosphere as she and some of the unruly residents are reminded of past and present abuses. |
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Like Dandelion Dust A drama that explores the different meanings of being a parent through the gritty, realistic lives of the struggling, blue-collar Porters, and the privileged Campbell family. Their lives intersect, intertwine, and collide, all for the love of a little boy. |
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Instant Family When Pete and Ellie decide to start a family, they stumble into the world of foster care adoption. They hope to take in one small child, but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15-year-old girl, they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight. Now, Pete and Ellie must try to learn the ropes of instant parenthood in the hope of becoming a family. |
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Ordinary Miracles A troubled teen is scooped up by a tough San Diego judge whose conscience causes her to bring the girl home with her to live. Together they face insecurities and personal problems to forge a special bond. |
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White Oleander Powerfully acted adaptation of Janet Fitch's best-selling novel. With her mother serving a life sentence for murdering her boyfriend, a teenage girl enters the foster care system. As she moves from one troubled foster home to another, each with its own rules and lessons to be learned, she begins a journey of self discovery. Trying to forge her own identity proves difficult under the cold-hearted influence of her mother. |
Child Welfare |
Foster |
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America A biracial 17-year old boy named America, who has experienced a difficult life of foster care and sexual abuse, undergoes counseling to help him come to terms with his painful past of childhood trauma, including growing up with (ad abandoned by) a crack-addicted mother and being shuffled through a series of foster homes. |
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Gracie's Choice Inspired by a true story. Gracie is a 17 year-old with four siblings from different fathers and a mother that is utterly incapable of taking care of the kids. When it looks as if the kids will be scattered to the wind, Gracie overcomes enormous obstacles to adopt her younger siblings and keep the family together. |
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Know How Know How captures the reality of life in foster care from the point of view of those living in it. It's not a documentary nor is it fiction. It's a hybrid approach for using film to create social change. Instead of professional screenwriters and actors, these true stories are written and performed by a cast of ordinary foster care youth, and their performances are powerful, moving, and eye-opening. |
Cultural Awareness |
Closure |
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Freedom Writers A dedicated teacher (Hilary Swank) in a racially divided Los Angeles school has a class of at-risk teenagers deemed incapable of learning. Instead of giving up, she inspires her students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school. |
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Off and Running Off and Running tells the story of Brooklyn teenager Avery, a track star with a bright future. She is the adopted African-American child of white Jewish lesbians. Her older brother is black and Puerto Rican and her younger brother is Korean. Though it may not look typical, Avery’s household is like most American homes — until Avery writes to her birth mother and the response throws her into crisis. |
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Foster Care's Invisible Youth Seven LGBTQ youth from the foster care system share their stories. Failed by their families, these young people go on to face rejection from foster families, invisibility within the system, and incredible obstacles to healthy development. |
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Any Day Now In the 1970s, a gay couple fights a biased legal system to keep custody of a teenager with Down Syndrome who has been abandoned by his mother. |
Domestic Violence |
Dear Zachary: A letter to a Son About His Father |
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Hidden in Plain Sight A woman stages her own suicide but still lives in fear of her abusive ex-boyfriend tracking her down and stealing the son he never knew he had. Netflix movie. |
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Impact of Domestic Violence on Children Research shows the impacts of Domestic Violence on Children can last a lifetime. Children exposed to violence in the home often experience psychosomatic illnesses, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Later in life, these children are at greater risk for substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and criminal behavior than those raised in homes without violence. |
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Radio Flyer When their parents divorce, brothers Mike and Bobby move to a California suburb with their mother, Mary. Soon after, she remarries a man who insists on being called "the King" and who beats young Bobby when Mary isn't around. The boys try to escape their harsh home life through fantasy, most of it centered on their Radio Flyer wagon. Inspired by the legend of another neighborhood boy, they hope to make it fly. |
Human Trafficking/Sexual Abuse |
I am Jane Doe An intense documentary that follows real cases of American girls enslaved in the child sex trade through ads in the newspaper's online classified section. The families fight to shut down backpage.com. Netflix documentary. |
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Selling the Girl Next Door |
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Leaving Neverland |
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Kind Hearted Woman |
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Sexy, Inc. |
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Abducted in Plain Sight In this true-crime documentary, a family falls prey to the manipulative charm of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice. Netflix documentary. |
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Very Young Girls Very Young Girls is an expose of human trafficking that follows 13 and 14-year-old American girls as they are seduced, abused, and sold on New York's streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows the barely-adolescent girls in real-time, using verite and intimate interviews with them as they are first lured on the streets and the dire events that follow. |
Homelessness |
Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County |
Mental Illness |
I Am Sam A mentally retarded man fights for custody of his 7 year-old daughter, and in the process teaches his cold-hearted lawyer the value of love and family. |
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Medicating Kids |
Trauma |
Paper Tigers |
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Broken Places Explores why some children are severely damaged by early adversity while others are able to thrive. By revisiting some of the abused and neglected children we profiled decades ago, we're able to dramatically illustrate how early trauma shaped their lives as adults. Broken Places interweaves these longitudinal narratives with commentary from a few nationally renowned experts to help viewers better understand the devastating impact of childhood adversity as well as the inspiring characteristics of resilience. |
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Healing Neen for 19 nightmarish years, she lived on the streets, racking up 66 criminal convictions, until finally treatment for her trauma offered her a way out and up. Healing Neen points to the consequences of untreated trauma to individuals and society-at-large, including mental health problems, addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. |
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Antwone Fisher Antwone Fisher, a young navy man, is forced to see a psychiatrist after a violent outburst against a fellow crewman. During the course of treatment, a painful past is revealed and a new hope begins. |
Movies for Kids |
Annie (1982) An orphan in a facility run by the mean Miss Hannigan, Annie believes that her parents left her there by mistake. When a rich man named Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks decides to let an orphan live at his home to promote his image, Annie is selected. While Annie gets accustomed to living in Warbucks' mansion, she still longs to meet her parents. So Warbucks announces a search for them and a reward, which brings out many frauds. |
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Annie (2014) |
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Hotel for Dogs After moving into a foster home that forbids pets, siblings Andi and Bruce must quickly find a home for their dog, Friday. The resourceful pair find an abandoned hotel, and with the help of Bruce's mechanical skills, turn it into a pooch paradise for Friday and a number of strays. But when the inevitable barking makes neighbors suspicious, Andi and Bruce must find a way to hide their canine haven from prying eyes. |
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Meet the Robinsons Boy genius Lewis gives up hope of retrieving his latest invention, which was stolen by Bowler Hat Guy, then a young time-traveler named Wilbur Robinson arrives on the scene to whisk Lewis away in his time machine. The boys spend a day in the future with Wilbur's eccentric family and uncover an amazing secret at the same time. |
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Despicable Me |