A House Made of Splinters - Storyville

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A House Made of Splinters

BBC Four HD

Signe Byrge Sørensen

Philippa Kowarsky

Monica Hellstrøm

Simon Lereng Wilmont

Storyville: A House Made of Splinters

BBC Four - Storyville, A House Made of Splinters

A single child's experience of life in an orphanage in Ukraine prior to Russia's invasion.

A Storyville documentary, filmed before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that focuses on the experience of a boy called Kolya in an orphanage in the war-torn east of the country.

Tears turn to soap bubbles, and hugs turn to fights, in this award-winning film about an orphanage in eastern Ukraine, filmed before Russia’s invasion in February 2022. 

In a large ramshackle house near the front line in war-torn eastern Ukraine, a group of Ukrainian women run an orphanage. Children whose homes have been shattered by poverty, violence and alcohol can safely stay there for up to nine months until a decision is made on whether to return them home, foster them or move them to another orphanage. 

When one child checks out of the orphanage, a new one always checks in, missing their parents. Children like Kolya, who smokes cigarettes on the sly, steals, and draws tattoos on his arms, but who also looks after his younger siblings before collapsing, crying, into his drunk mother’s arms. 

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