Now Streaming on Indies Showcase: Daddy & Papa

Exploring the growing phenomenon of gay fatherhood through the stories of four families, Daddy & Papa looks at gay fathers who face both the routine and revolutionary challenges of becoming parents. Watch the Emmy Award-nominated documentary streaming free until Sept. 1st on ITVS’s Indies Showcase.

Daddy & Papa explores the personal, cultural, and political impact of gay men who are making a decision that is at once traditional and revolutionary: to raise children themselves. Taking us inside four gay male families, Daddy & Papa traces the day-to-day challenges and the larger, critical issues that inevitably intersect their private lives – the ambiguous place of interracial families in America, the wonder and precariousness of surrogacy and adoption, the complexities of marriage and divorce within the gay community, and the legality of their own parenthood.

Watch Daddy & Papa now on ITVS’s Indies Showcase >>

Tags: adoption, babies, divorce, Emmy, Fatherhood, film festival, gay, marriage, parenting, parents, Sundance, traditional

Adoption Stories Continue on P.O.V.

In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee Directed by Deann Borshay Liem

P.O.V. continues its focus on adoption stories this month with In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee, Tuesday night (check local listings).

In the 1960s, the Sun Duck Orphanage in South Korea switched the identities of two orphans when an American family adopted one of them.

Filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem goes on a quest to search for her “double” — a girl named Cha Jung Hee — in an attempt to resolve a case of mistaken identity and in the process explores the complexities of international transracial adoptions.

Last Tuesday, P.O.V. aired another ITVS-funded film on adoption, Off and Running.

Tags: adoption, in the matter of cha jung hee, indie films, ITVS, off and running, P.O.V., PBS, public television

Adoption Stories Front and Center on P.O.V.

Off and Running, directed by Nicole Opper

This month, P.O.V. presents two ITVS-funded documentaries about adoption including Off and Running and In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee.

Off and Running airs tonight on P.O.V. (check local listings) and follows Avery, an African American teenager and the adopted daughter of two Jewish lesbian moms in Brooklyn. On a quest to meet her birth mother in Texas, Avery begins to uncover the missing pieces of her identity.

Watch the trailer for Off and Running:

Check out some behind-the-scenes › Continue reading

Tags: adoption, Brooklyn, China, docs, indie films, ITVS, New York, P.O.V., PBS, prop 8, same sex marriage

Tonight: In Celebration of “Fancy” Families

“Sunshine is a refreshing and compelling self-portrait of an adopted woman driven to search for her pride and identity while reconnecting with her biological mother.”   -Wellsphere.com

“Profoundly affecting. Even resistant guys will find themselves melting in the sunshine.”   -Austin American Stateman

Has your life ever taken an unexpected detour?  Just in time for Mother’s Day, filmmaker Karen Skloss reunites with her biological mother to tell a personal story about adoption and life as a single mother, while grappling with the definition of family. Young, pregnant, single, and unprepared, Skloss struggles with incredible ironies — that history has repeated itself, and that efforts to protect family can sometimes do the most harm.

Sunshine premieres tonight, Tuesday, May 4 at 10:00 on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Tags: adoption, Austin, mother's day, single mothers, single parents

A Mother’s Day message from Sunshine’s Karen Skloss

Karen Skloss, producer/director of Sunshine (premiering May 4 at 10 PM on Independent Lens on PBS, check local listings), shares the process that brought her to find her biological mother and to carry her pregnancy to term, as well as the social stigmas that subtly color our view of single parenthood.

Karen Skloss and her birth mother Mary return to the Home of the Holy Infancy

I suppose anyone who is adopted wonders about their natural parents. When things are kept secret, questions are all you’ve got. In the back of my mind, I’d always thought about what life might have been like growing up with my biological mother, but I was afraid of what I might find if ever I met her. I was also afraid that she wanted to forget all about me.

When I turned 19, my adoptive mom told me that if I wanted to, I could go back to the adoption home and ask my questions. It turns out I had ridden my bike past that place a million times, The Home of the Holy Infancy, right down the street from the biggest sorority at the University of Texas in Austin, where I had been going to college. Waiting for me in the files there was a letter from my biological mother. “I just need to know that you are okay,” said the letter. It had been waiting there for five years.

› Continue reading

Tags: adoption, gay parenting, mother's day, single mothers, single parents

Open Call Recipients: Melanie Judd and Susan Motamed, Filmmakers of ADOPT ME, MICHAEL JORDAN

ITVS’s Open Call provides finishing funds for single non-fiction or animation public television programs on any subject and from any viewpoint. Projects must have begun production as evidenced by a work-in-progress video.

Check out the clip below with filmmakers Melanie Judd and Susan Motamed, who received Open Call funds for their film ADOPT ME, MICHAEL JORDAN, which offers an intimate look at the struggle to create an identity in the aftermath of adoption across race and culture. Learn more about their film and the universal themes explored such as being an adolescent and searching for what it means to belong to somewhere.

Find more information about Open Call funding >>

Tags: adoption, Ethiopia, film resources, Open Call