Unlocking a Heart: Sheila Ganz

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Update: The film is complete. Please contact Sheila at sganz@hotmail.com for purchase and distribution information.

Filmmaker Sheila Ganz
in the editing room.

Sheila Ganz is an artist, playwright, and birthmother who, with no film training, embarked on what became a thirteen-year odyssey to make a documentary film about adoption. This is a non-profit project sponsored by Films Arts Foundation in San Francisco, where Sheila lives.

Unlocking the Heart of Adoption
is a film about the lifelong impact of adoption on all three members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents - in same-race and transracial adoptions.

Told through the personal stories of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents, the film explores issues common to all members of the adoption community: abandonment, loss, identity, self-esteem, and the need to know. This 58-minute documentary makes a powerful statement that speaks to and for many who live and have lived the adoption experience across generations.

Doing It All

Sheila sculpts with
chicken-wire, bamboo, burlap
and plaster.

In unlocking her own heart, Sheila brings the adoption experience to life as she narrates the film, telling her story as a birthmother while constructing a life-size sculpture of a mother holding her baby in a hospital bed. With no past film credits, getting support from traditional sources, such as foundations, has been difficult. She herself assumed the many roles of interviewer, cameraperson, editor, and grant-writer.

Not a Newcomer

While Unlocking
is Sheila's first film, she is not a newcomer to expressing adoption-related themes in the arts. In 1984, she wrote, directed, and produced a play, Pretend It Didn't Happen,
about her birthmother experience, for her Master's thesis in Interdisciplinary Arts. She also has a degree in sculpture.

"Then, in 1988," she says, "after being in adoption support groups and taking part in demonstrations for open adoption records, I was inspired to portray the adoption experience from all three points of view of the adoption triangle. With no film training, I embarked on what has become a thirteen-year journey."

Pre-release Success

The work-in-progress was screened numerous times to critical acclaim before adoption support groups, social workers, filmmakers, conferences, and at several colleges and universities. Screenings include Q&A discussions and written feedback sheets. Through conferences, word-of-mouth and her Web site, adoption agencies have heard about the film and requested it. Sheila has appeared on radio and television talk shows about adoption. Even before it was completed, Unlocking the Heart of Adoption
it was being seen and used as an educational tool in the national adoption community.

Deborah Hoffmann, documentary filmmaker whose credits include the Academy Award-winning "The Times of Harvey Milk" and Oscar-nominated "Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter" writes,

"After years of dedicated work, Sheila Ganz is on the threshold of completion. I strongly urge support of this ground breaking work. I have no doubt that "Unlocking the Heart of Adoption" is a video that will change lives. Certainly it has stayed with me and has altered my whole view of this intimate topic."

With award-winning film advisors, audience feedback, and donations at screenings, Unlocking
has finally been shaped into a cohesive film and Sheila has finally transformed the offline fine cut into a polished, digitally-mastered broadcast-quality piece.

Sheila joined us for an informal chat and the chat transcript has been posted.

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