Filmmkaer Kathryn Hunt is interested in telling the stories of people on the margins. In this piece for Crosscut, Hunt writes that the people in her films “were tangled up with three social institutions that rarely touch the lucky rest of us: foster care, criminal justice (courts and prisons), and what we used to call welfare and are now supposed to call something else, but mostly still think of as welfare. These institutions are raw, inescapable realities for the poor. The mostly well-meaning workers in those places could humiliate and deny their clients resources by simply following protocols, or fail to keep their children safe or, at worst, tear families and loved ones apart, however necessary that might appear to others.”
[Photo Credit: James Nicoloro]
Hunt tells the story of the Wilson family – mother Lori, and her three children, in No Place Like Home. Central to the film is Barbara who in 1995, the year the film was made, was 10 years old. The film shows the cycle of poverty, abuse, neglect – Barbara herself was sexually abused at a young age, spiraled into drugs and poverty and lost a child to the child welfare system.
Read Hunt’s article for Crosscut, who features stories about vulnerable and at-risk children and youth .
For more about Crosscut’s Kids At Risk, click here.
Read Hunt’s article for Crosscut, who features stories about vulnerable and at-risk children and youth .
For more about Crosscut’s Kids At Risk, click here.