A House Made of Splinters / FIlm School Radio interview with Director Simon Lereng Wilmont

Award-winning filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont (THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS) brings his intimate and empathetic touch to a rundown halfway house in Eastern Ukraine that houses some of the country’s most vulnerable - dozens of children cramped between an unstable and chaotic home life and the over-burdened foster care system. Wilmont’s A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS documents the fast-disappearing childhoods of these vulnerable young people amidst ever-worsening political strife with adroit warmth and unfettered access. As the film records how children suffer and survive violence and abandonment, the “orphanage” becomes a metaphor for a home, a country and a world where people entrusted with leadership fail to rise up to their responsibilities. Director, producer Simon Lereng Wilmont joins us for a conversation on the trove of love and hope that he found amongst the dysfunction and despair that has pushed so many children into institutional living, the spark of youth that refuses to be extinguished and the caring staff that do the best they can in a corner of the world that is imploding. For more go to: cinephil.com/a-house-made-of-splinters