Child No. 182 screens at the 2025 New Jersey International Film Festival on Thursday, June 5th

In Child No. 182, filmmaker Camilla Roos turns the lens inward to explore the earliest years of her own life, spent drifting through Finland’s child protection system in the 1960s and 70s. Over the course of this 50-minute documentary, we explore the emotional landscape of a child trying to reach stability within an inherently unstable situation. It’s a deeply personal and engaging portrait, one that is all the more intriguing as it is of the filmmaker herself.

Born in Sweden in 1964 to a mother struggling with mental illness and a father battling alcoholism, Roos was quickly absorbed into Finland’s social services. From there, her life became a patchwork of summer camps, foster homes, and brief attempts to return to her…