"Sheila Ganz, the filmmaker, is a birthmother and an artist with an inclusive, compassionate view of adoption from every angle.  The audience at the West Coast premiere last Friday, November 7, 2003, was as diverse, as the people in the film.  It’s really rare for adult adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents to come together like that, with compassion and understanding and empathy. Everybody was on the same page.  'That is my vision,' Sheila told me afterwards. 'I want a real adoption community, one that includes everybody.' She accomplished that last Friday night, for sure."  Read full review
Amy Klatzkin, adoptive mother with a daughter from China, co-author of Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son

"I knew I was going to love the film Unlocking the Heart of Adoption, and I did.  It flew straight into my heart of experience.  But something I didn’t expect happened too.  I felt relieved that a massive weight was now gone. I’m the product of a teenage pregnancy.  While growing up I wished my parents had allowed me to be adopted, because I believed adoption was my only chance for a stable family life and for a mother and father who were ready to be parents.  Yet, I was also always careful to be very very good, fearing that if I wasn’t good my parents might not keep me.  In sixteen year-old Tom and fifteen year-old Rita’s story I saw what it was probably like for my mom and dad, and a large chunk of my own grief dissolved, and the weight lifted.  I then understood that I could finally stop trying to be perfect. Other pieces of the mosaic of me is that I was once a pregnant teenager thinking hard about surrendering my baby for adoption.  And today, I’m an adoptive mother, the mom of adults.  Sheila’s film allowed me to view my life as a whole and explore parts of myself that aren’t usually encouraged to surface within the adoption community."
Terra Trevor, author of the memoir Pushing up the Sky: A Mother’s Story forthcoming from KAAN, and contributing author of Children of The Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education.

"Sheila Ganz has done something no other adoption documentary has achieved: She has shown the effects of adoption on all three parts of the adoption triad.  The thoughts and feelings portrayed by the various participants will open the eyes and hearts of everyone who views it.  Anyone who has or plans to have anything to do with adoption should see this film."
Nancy Verrier, MA
adoptive mother, therapist and author of The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child and Coming Home to Self

"In her film, Unlocking the Heart of Adoption, Sheila Ganz addresses important aspects of adoption from various viewpoints: the birthparents, the adoptee, and the adoptive parents.  The film is a wonderful introduction to the universal themes of adoption, and shows us how people cope or don't cope with adoption and it's many aspects.  This film is a must-see for anyone involved in the adoption process at any level.  For it is educational, thoughtful, and genuine - a film you may want to see more than once to truly grasp all that is being said.  It is the kind of film to see when you are ready for a not-made-in-Hollywood’ adoption film."
Sue Spaulding, adoptee
Member of the Association of Korean Adoptees, San Francisco Chapter

"Thank you for the wonderful tape in which everyone is so generous in sharing their experiences.  I think that hearing the birthmother's perspective is so helpful for our kids -- to hear that the children were valued and not 'given up' lightly, nor erased from their birthmother's memories."
Susan Kajiwara, adoptive mother, California

"Sheila Ganz’s educational documentary film, Unlocking the Heart of Adoption, stirringly reveals the enormous complexity in the lives of normal people, when they are impacted by the profound losses inherent in adoption, and unflinchingly demonstrates the disturbing repercussions of secrecy.  But ultimately, these compelling interviews of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents in both same race and transracial adoptions are about the courage it takes to become conscious of one’s story and the deepening understanding of love that results, no matter the ending."  Read full review
Carol Schaefer, birthmother, author of The Other Mother, Mary Queen of Scots and the stage play The Sacred Virgin

"I am absoulutly speechless and you need to know that has only happened like twice in 46 years.  Don't worry it does not last long and I will get back to you with a review.  Thank you for giving my heart a voice and for the work you do. My tears are of such joy to have seen your work. Love now and always."
Menda, birthmother, Southern California

"I had the honor and wonderful luck to win your tape at the Bastard Nation
raffle!!  How can I thank you enough for making this beautiful, beautiful
film.  I really don't have adequate words to describe all that I felt as I
watched it. I need to see it again and again because I feel as if I need to
get to know each one of these people better!  I feel as if I have a strong
bond with each and every one of them.  Some things struck me so strongly.... I wish I could tell you how hard they hit me. If you can believe this, I was born in 1937, yet of all the adoptees you featured, I think that Jody said so many things that absolutely were 'me.'  It reinforces for me that *fact* that adopted people do have similar feelings about being adopted, these feelings are *real* and it crosses all gender, race and age lines. It helped acknowledge my feelings."
Anita, adoptee, Skokie, IL

"This film is of great value to the field of adoption and to the emotional growth and learning of viewers who come into contact with adoption in any way - that is to say almost all of us."
Judith R. Bush, ACSW, adoptive mother and post-adoption consultant

"I've just finished watching your documentary -- again. And once again, I feel an overwhelming poignancy that penetrates to the core of my being. Your video is an absolutely wonderful documentary of the whole adoption spectrum and all the relational variations and permutations. Obviously, not only a work of art, but a work of love whose compassion and caring comes through in every sequence, every shot and every frame. Great job, Sheila, and a must-see film for anyone involved in adoption."
David, birthfather, Joiet, IL

"I feel the film already changed something in me!  I am full of admiration."
Ronit Kerzner, adoptee and filmmaker in Israel

"Unlocking the Heart of Adoption has more depth to it than any other film I've seen on the subject." 
Penny Callan Partridge, adoptee, adoptive parent, poet and adoption activist

"My wife and I watched your film tonight. It is really very beautifully done. Congratulations. You cover so many stories so clearly, so warmly and with great compassion. The points made are strikingly clear. What a tremendous document. If only governments would watch and learn from such wisdom as you present in that film the world would be a much different place for adoptees."
Ron, adoptee and adoption reform activist, Canada

"I believe this documentary presents an aspect of the adoption process that most Americans neither understand nor appreciate: the effects of relinquishment on all members of the adoption triad.  Unlocking the Heart of Adoption poignantly illustrates what we in the adoption reform movement have long known but have been virtually unsuccessful in conveying to the general public -- that while adoption can be a great blessing, every adoption is necessarily founded on a tragic loss.  This documentary goes far in helping us explore issues relating to the relinquishment of a child by his/her mother, an inescapable reality of every adoption experience.  Although the documentary is presented from a birthmother's point of view, it incorporates reactions of adoptees and adoptive parents as well.  This superbly executed documentary serves well the discussion regarding adoption in a nation in which adoption now touches the lives of an estimated 100 million people."
Rev. Thomas F. Brosnan, Pastor and adoptee
Brooklyn, NY


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