Through divorce, adoption and second marriages, none of the children in the Van Wijk family have the same biological parents.
This feature documentary tells the complex and touching story of Winnipeg city councilor Glen Murray and his 17-year-old adopted son Mike, whose struggles with addiction and behavioural problems cyclically repeat. Glen, now an Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament, was one of the first openly gay elected politicians in Canada. He adopted Mike during an era when homophobic stereotypes often prevented gay men and women from adopting children. Glen and Mike's relationship is always tenuous and always turbulent as they struggle to define themselves together and alone.
A GIRL LIKE HER is the real story of 'sex and the single girl'. It reveals the hidden history of over a million young women who became pregnant in the 1950s and 60s and were banished to maternity homes to give birth and surrender their babies for adoption. They were told to keep their secret, move on and forget. But, does a woman forget her child? Hear what they have to say now about the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives.
Jan's father is not his father at all. The directors knows this and takes this fact as the starting point for a very personal documentary film project about the search for his biological father(s).
When are you ready to find out who you really are? At the age of 10, adopted Russian children Grego and Alexa Ammon are rocked by the murder of their father Ted in the Hamptons by their stepfather Danny Pelosi. Soon afterwards, their mother Generosa died of cancer. Now twenty years old, they decide to unearth their roots in the Ukraine. Orphans made orphans again, seeking their identities because even reality doesn't seem real, 59 MIDDLE LANE is a deeply felt documentary that charts the human need to connect and the mysterious journey it takes to move from tragedy to joy.
Kati Pohler was abandoned in a market in China when she was three days old. Her parents left a note saying they would meet her on a famous bridge 10 or 20 years later. When the time arrived, it became a huge story in China, but Kati was living in America and had no idea. This is how she finally met her biological family.
In this funny and moving documentary, acclaimed film-maker Daisy Asquith tells the very personal story of her mother's conception after a dance in the 1940s on the remote west coast of Ireland. By exploring the repercussions of this act, Daisy and her mother embark on a fascinating and emotional adventure in social and sexual morality. Her grandmother, compelled to run away to have her baby in secret, handed the child over to 'the nuns'. Daisy's mum was eventually adopted by English Catholics from Stoke-on-Trent. Her grandmother returned to Ireland and told no-one. The father remained a mystery for another 60 years, until Daisy and her mum decided it was time to find out who he was. Their attempts to find the truth make raw the fear and shame that Catholicism has wrought on the Irish psyche for centuries. It leads Daisy and her mum to connect with a brand new family living an extraordinarily different life.
In 1966, Deann Borshay Liem was adopted by an American family and sent from Korea to her new home in California. There, the memory of her birth family was nearly obliterated, until recurring dreams led her to investigate her own past, and she discovered that her Korean mother was very much alive. Bravely uniting her biological and adoptive families, Borshay Liem embarks on a heartfelt journey in this acclaimed film that first premiered on POV in 2000. First Person Plural is a poignant essay on family, loss and the reconciling of two identities.
What does it mean to adopted and brought up far away from your country of birth? In “Given Away,” this week’s moving new Op-Doc by directors Glenn and Julie Morey, Korean adoptees who grew up in Western countries reflect on the complicated emotional terrain that they’ve navigated in their lives. Glenn Morey was himself adopted from Korea in the wake of the Korean war, and the directors have channeled that connection to create a beautifully nuanced and emotional film. As the Moreys write of Glenn’s experience interviewing adoptees, “He has needed others like him … to help him make sense of his life. They have also helped him make peace with the universe.”
Denese Joy Becker, a manicurist living in Iowa, discovers she is indeed Dominga Sic Ruiz, a survivor from a 1982 Guatemalan massacre, when more than 200 people were killed in the small village of Rio Negro, after opposing the construction of a dam, sponsored by World Bank. She then tries to unveil the truth.
An intimate portrait of a real Modern Family: Meet Erik and Sandro, a gay couple with daughters birthed by their friend Rachel who's married with three teenagers of her own.
Lou Wilson returns from a few years of college to live at home again only to find that his parents have adopted a 12-year-old.
After 48 years of emotional longing, a mother meets her son who she relinquished at birth. In the months after the reunion, Dorothy and Joe must overcome nearly five decades of separation in order to reconnect.
A family of cats find an abandoned kitten and take him in to their home. But one of the siblings becomes jealous about the attention the new cat gets from her mother and runs away from home. The new member of the family goes looking for her. Can he bring her back home safely and get her to accept him as part of the family?