From the colorful, often Dickensian image of unaccompanied,
soot-smudged children (aka urchins, ragamuffins, gamins,
guttersnipes, street rats, or lil’ imps) roaming the streets of
19th-century industrial cities to contemporary reports of
meninos de rua (street children) in Rio de Janeiro, throwaway
kids in American urban centers, and youth displaced by civil war
in Sierra Leone, prematurely emancipated children remain a
distressing sociological phenomenon—and a compelling cinematic
subject. The moving picture also developed as a product of
industrial innovation in the late 19th century, and the medium
used daily life as inspiration for the earliest actualités and
narrative films. Not only did the motion picture capture the
derelict sociological status of youth emancipated by choice or
fate, the camera also recorded children at play, at school,
pursuing physical education, and creating youth-centric
cultures. In the cinema, children are often positioned as
taciturn witnesses to trauma and domestic events; som