System Crasher

Benni is a nine year old girl whose explosive rage overwhelms every foster placement, school, and care institution that tries to hold her. As professionals and carers exhaust their options, a support worker forms a fragile bond with her, and the film follows the desperate, well meaning, and repeatedly failed attempts to give her a stable home.

Benni is a vivid portrait of attachment trauma and of a child whom no system is built to contain. The film shows how early disruption of care shapes a nervous system braced for abandonment, and how services reach the limits of what they can offer. It won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019.