Social Justice in Movies, Part Two

Pedro, a gay man with an active social life and many friends, takes in his nephew Bernardo for a couple weeks. When the arrangement becomes permanent , Pedro turns to his friends for guidance as he and Bernardo forge a household together.

Alfredo is a kid who begins in a new new school where he makes a friend, Pablo. Alfredo realizes that Pablo is a victim of home abuse by his father, and decides to involve his own family in order to help his friend.

Sharkey, part of the sinister world of child trade, picks up Vlado, an orphan of war, dreaming of freedom and a better life. They embark upon a strange and enlightening journey through war torn Bosnia. As they struggle to get out of the country and fight to stay alive, they find a special love and compassion from which emerges their ultimate moral and spiritual redemption.

Set in the Tadjik village of Asht, this film draws on the Muslim notion that we are born with an angel on each shoulder, and that the angel on the right records the good that we do throughout our lives, and the angel on the left the bad. A man who has served ten years in a Moscow prison is summoned home upon release, to help settle the affairs of his dying mother, but it is soon borne into him that he must settle his own outstanding affairs with the villagers. The nine year old son he never knew about is entrusted by the dying mother with the family heirloom jewellery, tasked with only passing it on to his father if he becomes a good man.

A young, naive boy sets out alone on the road to find his wayward mother. Soon he finds an unlikely protector in a crotchety man and the two have a series of unexpected adventures along the way.

In the 19th century, children - particularly the children of the poor - were considered to be an exploitable resource of docile and cheap labor. Anyone who had the effrontery to steal so much as a portion of a loaf of bread for any reason would (at the very least) go to prison, regardless of their age. However, people of conscience were beginning to protest against this situation. The story takes place in a prison for children where conditions are particularly harsh. The warden is a thick-headed martinet who demands complete compliance with the rules, or the children will be brutally dealt with. The assistant warden is a more modern man, and is appalled by the whole institution, but seeks to begin by reforming it. To that end, he has invited a journalist to come and see the conditions that prevail there, in the hopes that she will rouse public opinion against at least this one form of injustice.

A twelve-year-old boy escapes from a Bulgarian Communist concentration camp and sets out on a journey to reach Denmark.

A drug dealer finds an unlikely traveling companion in a runaway kid trying to dodge social services.

In 1939, an Englishwoman inherits a sprawling ranch in northern Australia and reluctantly makes a pact with a stockman to drive 2000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape.

In 1935, ninety-nine-year-old former slave Shadrach asks to be buried on the soil where he was born to slavery, and that land is owned by the large Dabney family, consisting of Vernon, Trixie, and their seven children, and to bury a black man on that land is a violation of strict Virginia law.

Based on a true story. A poor black sharecropper strikes up an unlikely friendship with a hostile young white boy - but their budding friendship is threatened by a brutal red-neck sheriff.

When a youngster needs a break from the pressures of his parents' household, he moves in with his offbeat uncles and learns some invaluable life lessons.

A young boy struggles on his own in a run-down hotel after his parents and younger brother are separated from him in 1930s Depression-era Midwest.

Two young orphans have to relocate to Nova Scotia and endure their bitter and jerky grandfather, but when they find a baby washed up on the beach, everything changes.

Drama about life at Rugby School in Victorian England. The headmaster is fair but not effective and life is brutal for the young boys because of bullying and its consequences. The acting and character development are good and the roles well cast. It's a good adaptation of the novel and was filmed at The Rugby School.

Zachary Beaver, a sideshow attraction known as the world's fattest boy, arrives in the sleepy town of Granger, Texas.

This parable looks at public reaction when the hair of an American war orphan mysteriously turns green.

One summer, four orphans boys who have grown to be the closest of friends find themselves competing for the attention of the same family.

Meena, a 12-year-old living in a mining village in the English Midlands in 1972, is the daughter of Indian parents who have come to England to give her a better life. This idyllic existence is upset by the arrival in the village of Anita Rutter and her dysfunctional family. Anita is 14, blonde and beautiful, exactly what Meena thinks she wants to be. She becomes part of Anita's world, but events do not run smoothly. Meena is growing up, and that brings plenty of changes.

Chuck wants to leave home but can't make the grade for boarding school. Then he finds out the disfigured recluse living nearby is an ex-teacher.

South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, the Black anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko.

The idealist William Wilberforce maneuvers his way through Parliament, endeavoring to end the British transatlantic slave trade.

Verlin is 9 years old and does not talk, nor does he even seem to hear. Henry, a child-like adult, befriends Verlin and pulls him from his shell. Verlin's mother mistrusts Henry, who she feels is dangerous. Eventually, Henry's family is convinced that he should be placed in an institution. Henry's sudden disappearance from Verlin's world drives him deeper into himself.

In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

A young boy attempts to make the world a better place after his teacher gives him that chance.