Family Portrait in Black and White

In Ukraine, the general feeling about people with dark skin is that there's no place for them in the country. And it's not only flag-waving skinheads shouting it out loud, because regular folk on the streets say it, too: if you're not 100% white, you're not 100% Ukrainian. In the small town of Sumy, Olga Nenya lives with her big family, which consists of a few kids of her own and 16 black foster children. The film follows the family over a long period of time, alternating scenes from their daily lives and interviews with the family members. Most of the foster children were left at the orphanage as babies, before Olga took them into her home. Olga loves all of them and she fights like a lioness against the oppression and prejudice of the authorities and neighbors, thinking only of her kids' future and well-being. She stands up to a delegation from the municipal government that declares her house unfit to live in, and she encourages her children to study hard. Sometimes, however, her love is suffocating and the kids feel unable to spread their wings. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)