Life for Christine

Synopsis: A documentary- drama based on a true case history researched by MIND, the National Association for Mental Health. The play starts when Colin, a social worker for MIND, discovers Christine, a 14-year-old girl, in Holloway Prison. He is shocked to see her in an empty cell with only a mattress on the floor and to read on the door that her sentence is ‘for the period of your life’. Christine recounts her story to Colin: how an apparently normal child with a troubled childhood becomes an outcast at school, is taken into care, moved from institution to institution, sedated yet rebellious, and how eventually after setting fire to some curtains she received her life sentence. The film questions the legal system which condemns children like Christine to this kind of treatment and, the bureaucracy of the welfare state.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Film; Video; Film. 16mm. sd. col. 79 min. Videocassette. VHS. col. 79 min.
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Availability: Hire (video - Glenbuck only)
Subjects: Drama; Law; Social welfare
Keywords: prisons; young offenders

Producer

Writer

Cast

Name: BFI Film Bookings Unit
Email: bookings.films@bfi.org.uk
Web: http://www.bfi.org.uk/about-bfi/help-faq/film-bookings External site opens in new window
Phone: 020 7957 8938 / 8935
Address: 21 Stephen Street
London
W1T 1LN

Name: Concord Media
Email: sales@concordmedia.org.uk
Web: http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/ External site opens in new window
Phone: 01473 726 012
Address: Rosehill Centre
22 Hines Road
Ipswich
IP3 9BG
Notes: A long-established, not-for-profit organisation with a large collection DVDs, specialising in the sectors of general and mental health, child care, race relations, war and peace, addictions, the third world, ecology, civil rights, personal relationships, educational issues, and social work training. Concord also handles titles made for the Graves Medical Audio-visual Library. Sale on DVD. Formerly known as Concord Video and Film Council. In 2014 Concord began to offer selected films as Video on Demand, via Vimeo.

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