Director Simon Lereng Wilmont maintains an observational style and eschews commentary as he allows his young participants to discuss their own, often heartbreaking, experiences.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2024

What Mr. Wilmont manages to capture from children -- whom he has made utterly oblivious to his camera -- is close to miraculous.

| Jul 14, 2023

A documentary filmed inside a special orphanage in the Ukraine where the children express both sorrow and hope.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 28, 2023

"A House Made of Splinters" bears witness not only to children’s ongoing trauma, but to their enduring ability to seek out and sustain their own support networks.

| Mar 27, 2023

An immersive documentary that’s hard to watch, but very moving.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2023

Even as it looks out over these small wrecked lives, the movie holds out hope in the patience and affection of the shelter’s staff and the unquenchable spirit of the children.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2023

Emotions run high from the opening scenes, as Danish director Simon Lareng Wilmont takes an observational fly-on-the-wall approach that astutely captures the deeper dramas.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 1, 2023

Crafted if sometimes wrenching look at...

| Feb 27, 2023

Simon Lereng Wilmont's A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to get us inside those "walls of sorrow." This is a purgatory of healing run by saints whose necessary existence proves just how damaged our world remains.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 24, 2023

Heartbreaking. "A House Made of Splinters" shows the effect a long, drawn-out war can have on the generation living through it and the ones to follow.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 23, 2023

“A House Made of Splinters” is made with such aching sensitivity that it’s a marvel a camera was used and not some form of mind-meld.

| Feb 22, 2023

Affords an intimate and wrenching view of a nation collapsing under the weight of unbearable traumas, and of the young children who are the prime victims of that strain.

| Feb 22, 2023

Wilmont's film edges into emotional exploitation at times, but the raw moments he captures in this facility are a testament to the trust he clearly built with everyone there.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 21, 2023

This Oscar-nominated documentary about an orphanage for children in war-torn Eastern Ukrainian is like an empathy megaphone, bringing their plight straight into your heart.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 21, 2023

[T]he heartbreaking realities of this situation are never lost.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 21, 2023

Given the setting, there’s an interesting level of intimacy at play, as the camera guides us through various events ranging from depressing to inspiring.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 15, 2023

... an intense, intimate, and at times moving portrait. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 11, 2023

[These kids] don’t have the benefit of too many happy endings ... but in A House Made of Splinters—where pain burrows in under the skin and sits until it is extracted and healing can begin—they are granted a witness to show their humanity to the world.

| Feb 2, 2023

The despair can often feel overwhelming, but it’s in service of providing a full landscape of the trials that must be endured.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 18, 2023

There’s a rare intimacy about it.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 3, 2023