
Waiting for the Sun
★ 6.2 · 2017 · 92m · Documentary
In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.
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Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home. They spend winter nights trying to stay warm by huddling together on hot water pipes and most of their days are spent begging. Andrej has found himself here because of disagreements with his family. Kristina was driven into this way of life by the hatred of her stepmother and twelve-year-old Roma by the regular beatings he received from his constantly drunk father. "When it is worst, we try to make money for food by prostitution," admits ...
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It has been forty years since the Sanmen Gorge project, a great dam high across the Yellow River at Sanmen Gorge, was completed. It's construction has had a large impact on the environment and the people. Among these are conflicts with local farmers, resettlement and life in exile of villagers, flooding and economical development.
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Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
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A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.
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1933 · ★ 7.7
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This Is China
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