parental absence

His films like 'Nobody Knows' and 'After the Storm' intimately explore the emotional and psychological impact of absent or negligent parents on children.

Through social realist cinema, he documents how parental absence due to poverty and systemic failure devastates working-class families in films like 'I, Daniel Blake'.

Her films 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' and 'You Were Never Really Here' examine how maternal and paternal absence creates psychological trauma and violence.