Custody (1988)

Directed by

Ian Munro

Genre

drama, tv movie

Country

Australia

Runtime

1h 34m

Rated

PG

Rating

9.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A film about a child custody case that unfolds without a script. Actors and real family court staff improvise the story based on true events. The outcome is unknown to all participants until the judge delivers the verdict.

tenserawgroundedimprovisedgrittynaturalisticunscriptedemotionally taxing

What happens

Custody is a 1988 Australian TV docudrama about a child custody battle. It was filmed over three weeks in a semi-improvisational style. Custody was filmed with a mixture of actors and real staff from the family law system. The story was built from real cases. There was no script and actors workshopped their characters beforehand and role played their parts. None of the participants was aware of the result until the Judge gave his verdict. Richard Coleman of The Sydney Morning Herald called it "exceptionally good television". Kathe Boehringer in Filmnews writes "The result is a remarkable hybrid, but whatever it is – a fiction film with a documentary feel? faction? a docu-drama? — you won't be able to stop watching." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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