In the Child’s Best Interests

2016 | 1h 8m | documentary

The documentary opens up the hot topic of the existence of infant institutions versus temporary foster care in the Czech Republic. Over the course of several months, the director followed the fate of children abandoned by their parents. These children end up either in institutional care or in temporary foster care. Both of these systems of care have their supporters and opponents in the ranks of institutional and foster staff, as well as politicians and psychologists. “I was interested in the mechanism of distributing the children; why some of them end up in an institution and some with foster parents. We were interested in what happens to the children during the first few months, which psychologists claim to be absolutely crucial for their personality development,” says Linda Kallistová Jablonská.