Film

UNLOVED: HURONIA'S FORGOTTEN CHILDREN

For most of her early life, filmmaker Barri Cohen knew her immediate family to consist of her parents, two brothers and half-sister. But one day, in a moment of emotional disclosure, her father revealed the existence of two more siblings.
Cohen never knew her half-brothers Alfred and Louis, who were dropped off as toddlers at the Huronia Regional Centre, a now-closed hospital and home for children with developmental disabilities. In the wake of a successful class-action lawsuit, Cohen is finally able "to peel back the half-truths and secrets" around her two now-deceased siblings. Speaking to the families and survivors of the centre, she pieces together the story of her brothers' lives through shocking stories of abuse, humiliation and trauma.
Unloved - Huronia’s Forgotten Children is a heartbreaking yet redemptive film that moves outwards from a highly personal and painful family secret to an investigation of hidden, searing truths about an entire government-enabled system of institutional cruelty and ugliness against vulnerable children.