Tough Love

Tough Love chronicles the lives of two parents fighting to reunite with their children. With cases in the United States child welfare system, they attempt to prove to the courts and the system that they deserve a second chance to be a parent and have a family.

Series: POV
Premiere Date: July 6, 2015
Length: 90 minutes
Funding Initiative: Series and Special Projects; Diversity Development Fund

Producer/Director

Stephanie Wang-Breal

Stephanie Wang-Breal has been producing and directing commercials, television shows, and documentaries for the past 10 years. She directed the award-winning feature-length documentary, Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy). The film was nominated for an Emmy, and was the recipient of a 2011 CINE Special Jury Award, as well as three Grand Jury Best… Show more Documentary Awards: at the AFI/ Discovery Silverdocs Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The film had its national television broadcast in 2010 on the award-winning PBS series P.O.V. Wang-Breal has also recently directed commercial doc pieces for Tiffany’s, Apple, Goldman Sachs, as well as a television episode for Nickelodeon's NickMom. She resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, son and daughter. Show less

Producer

Carrie Weprin

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The Film

Offering a rare look at the inner workings of the American child welfare system, Tough Love chronicles the lives of two parents — one in Seattle and one in New York City — as each fights to be reunited with children taken out of their custody.

The United States leads the world in the number of children in state-sponsored foster care. In 2011, over 250,000 children were removed from their parents’ homes and placed in foster care. Almost 80% of these child victimization cases involved findings of neglect, not abuse. Neglect allegations frequently involve poverty, mental illness, addiction, domestic violence, children with significant developmental challenges, and/or some combination of these factors.

Through intimate, verité footage of both families, in Tough Love we witness first-hand the crushing bureaucracy of America’s child welfare system. Moreover, we come to understand the powerful role poverty and prejudice play in keeping parents and children apart — and the challenges parents must overcome in order to put their families back together.