Filmed in a Direct Cinema tradition, Like the Others is the outcome of one and a half years spent by Constantin Wulff accompanying the daily routines of the child and adolescent psychiatric centre at the district hospital in Tulln. His unsentimental, yet empathic film shows the institutional work as a permanent balancing act: between gentle caution and pressure, routine and emotional involvement, regulations and improvisation. Just like the viewers, the staff members can only accompany the children and adolescents for a short while, before they return to their everyday lives. The doctors’ insights are based on complex interactions on various levels, sometimes gained in drama-like settings: drawings are interpreted through story-telling, emotional states are revealed by arranging objects, scenes from everyday life are re-enacted with play figurines. The skilfully mobile camera never leaves the hospital, and yet the outside world is permanently present – as if always defying the work of the physicians, therapists, educators and nurses in the clinic. Time and again, in the ward meetings, doctors discuss strategies of how to provide long-term and caring protection for children at risk of being physically and sexually abused.  

"Cuckoo's Nest" is organized in partnership with the Centre for Legal Resources, as part of the "Death Camps Next to You" campaign, funded through SEE 2009 - 2014 grants, part of NGO Fund in Romania. For official information about the SEE and Norwegian grants please access www.eeagrants.org.