Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celinski's Dzieci z Leningradzkiego | The Children of Leningradsky (2004)

It took two years to make this thirty-three minute film on a shoestring budget. It is gruelling to watch the children who live in and around Moscow's railway stations, sleeping there or on the street, or in derelict houses. They survive by begging at the stations, people leave money for them, feel sorry for them. They may have no parents, their parents may have thrown them out, may be alcoholics or drug addicts, may have been beaten and forced to leave home, but their friends are here now. Many become addicted to glue and vodka to survive, anything to avoid the reality of their lives. And they live in constant fear of death, young children, male or female, prostituting themselves to paedophiles. They are bullied and robbed by the older ones, and in turn they bully the old tramps. The police beat them, they have sores on their faces, they fight each other, if they are sent to an orphanage they get beaten, there is no hope for any future. An unforgettable movie about the hell of a post-Soviet Russia whose authorities have no concern for its children.