KATRINA'S CHILDREN

CSPS debut | Katrina's Children is a feature-length documentary about nineteen children from different neighborhoods of New Orleans. Told entirely from the children's point of view, the film explores the impact of Hurricane Katrina on their lives. We enter their world through their stories, their play, and
their art. Several of their drawings have been animated, magically bringing to life their interior universe.

Aching with sadness, yet grounded in hope, Katrina's Children is ultimately a celebration of children's extraordinary resilience and a tribute to New Orleans' unique and indomitable spirit.

It is almost impossible to understand the vastness of the destruction brought on by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Three years after Katrina, much of New Orleans is still in shambles. How does one deal with loss on such a vast scale?

By focusing exclusively on children's experience, Katrina's Children humanizes an epic storm and seeks to understand the tragic ramifications in a small personal way. The film shifts between past and present, weaving the children’s memories of Katrina with “verité-style” scenes of their everyday life. Part oral history, part lyrical meditation on childhood, loss, grief, healing and socio-economic divides, Katrina's Children addresses these grand themes through intimate vignettes that are deceivingly understated.

The children profiled come from all walks of life: from the daughter of a former Queen of Carnival, to underprivileged kids still stuck in Texas. Their common denominator is Katrina — an event that affected them all to varying degrees. The similarities and differences between their responses, sometimes wrenching, at times surprising, reveal patterns and problems that predate Katrina.

With their disarming honesty and innocent wisdom, the children of Katrina are at once witnesses and victims, heroes and survivors. Through their diverse and interconnected stories we discover a larger, more complex picture of New Orleans and America.