L’enfance nue

L’enfance nue (Naked Childhood) is a 1968 award-winning French film about a 10 year old boy's life in the foster care system. It's the debut feature film of Maurice Pialat, who was a painter before trying his hand at film. He directed this at age 44. He only directed 10 films, and Gérard Depardieu was in 4 of them (though not this one).

trailer:

via youtube:

Slant Magazine gives it 3.5 out of 5 stars and says,

the film is remarkable for its vivid, uncondescending snapshots of working-class life and, in its loving observation of Marie-Louise and René Thierry (real-life foster parents more or less playing themselves), the fullest portrait of an elderly couple since McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow.

DVD Talk says, "In content, style, and significance, Maurice Pialat's L'Enfance Nue hasn't aged a day. It remains an emotionally potent portrait of a childhood on the cusp of disaster." Time Out says, " It's a film in which nuance is everything; amazingly, given that Pialat was working exclusively with non-professionals, the performances are stunning."