Sofa Surfers (2010)
- Directed by
- John Walsh
- Genre
- documentary television program
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This BBC documentary series follows four homeless children in the UK. Each episode shows what their lives are like as they live in different kinds of temporary housing. The children speak honestly about their situations.
observationalpoignantcandideducationalhopefulintimategently probing
What happens
Sofa Surfers is a British documentary series for the BBC by John Walsh of Walsh Bros Ltd. There are over 130,000 children living in the UK today without a permanent place they can call home. Sofa Surfers is a BBC documentary series which takes a look into the lives of four homeless children living in different types of temporary accommodation. This is thought to be the first children’s documentary dedicated to this subject. Using animation and rotoscoping techniques by the company White Balance, the series has been described by the Whittington Hospital, which features in the film, as a watershed moment in children’s documentaries in the UK. The series was part of the BBC's homeless season of programmes. The film attempted to show the real lives of homelessness children through a week of observational documentaries aimed at an audience of 6–12 years old. Its approach was enabling the young and vulnerable contributors to speak candidly about their situation, and employed current animation techniques to bring those stories alive. Each episode featured testimony from children, as young as six, and showed their resilience, black humour and mature understanding of the incredibly difficult circumstances they were in. Walsh spoke on BBC News about challenges making the series. Two episode we filmed at the Chester-based charity Save The Family. One episode here included an interview with Iain Duncan Smith MP, supporter of the charity. Walsh made the acclaimed three part documentary series Headhunting The Homeless for BBC2 in 2003. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
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Planet Earth (2006)
Educating (2011)
How the Other Half Live (2009)
Show Me What You're Made Of (2011)- More like this series, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.