“Broken,” a film by Brooke Lewitas and Bill Lichtenstein, takes a hard look at the state’s handling of at-risk children. — Photos courtesy of LCMedia Productions .

By Joei Chan

Nearly 50 years ago in Somerville, the Jennifer Gallison case made headlines. A woman and her husband were convicted of manslaughter of their baby daughter, Jennifer Gallison, who was only two years old at the time. Eventually, their daughter passed away due to the parents’ failure to provide for her, and they disposed of the daughter’s body.

Their son, Edward Jr., was found in the home with bruises all over his body. Though both parents went to jail for their actions over their daughter and son, the governor at the time, Michael Dukakis, protested that more must be done for children.

Brooke Lewitas, a recent graduate from Boston University, and Bill Lichtenstein, a film producer, journalist, and president of LCMedia Productions (formerly known as Lichtenstein Creative Media), have decided to team up to uncover the child protection, foster care, and juvenile court system in Massachusetts with their upcoming documentary, Broken.

Lewitas says that she has a “long-time interest in child protection and what happens when kids can’t live at home or when the state gets involved in caring for children,” and that’s what sparked her interest in reporting this weighty matter.

Lewitas met Lichtenstein on a Facebook group, where she posted an announcement saying that she would like to report on the child protection, foster care, and juvenile court system in Massachusetts. This sparked Lichtenstein’s interest, as he mentions that he’s “been trying to find a way to do a story about this over the years, just because the system is such a mess.” Eventually, he reached out to Lewitas, and they came up with the idea to create something together about the system.

Lichtenstein himself also had experience in covering the system. “I wrote an article in 2013 for The Huffington Post that said that more than 100 kids in custody and care of the state in some way had died over a 3-year period,” says Lichtenstein. He feels like it was fate that Lewitas wanted to cover this issue, as he believed that there should be more reaction to the system. With this in mind, they decided that, rather than writing another article, the subject would be best covered via a documentary film, so viewers can visualize and experience it themselves.

During the creation of this documentary, Lewitas spent a lot of time speaking with families who were impacted by the foster care system and learning about their stories. “I have had the opportunity to sit in people’s kitchens and have them tell me what happened, and I think it sometimes takes that level of exposure to override a really strong stigma,” says Lewitas.

Lichtenstein and Lewitas hope that this documentary can be seen by everyone, as they believe it is a problem for society, as it is fueled by tax revenues. They believe that this is an issue that affects everyone, and they hope for a change in the system soon.

This documentary is set to release sometime later this year or early next year in 2025, though the trailer is already up online. “Our goal is to make it into festival first, and then a limited theatrical release and public television. We also hope to make it useful for educational use, like social work school and law school. We are hoping that it will create a shift in attitudes about this problem,” says Lichtenstein.

For more information, go to brokenthefilm.org.