Showing posts with label Adoption DVD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adoption DVD. Show all posts

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Found In China


Here is another DVD that I just ordered called Found In China. Below is the description that I found from Amazon.com

"Product Description
Since the early '90s, Americans have adopted nearly 70,000 Chinese children. With thousands of them now at an age to appreciate returning to the homeland, heritage tours have brought adoptees and their families to China, presenting an unequaled opportunity for bonding and sharing identity issues. "Found in China" follows six Midwestern families as they observe contemporary trends and ancient Asian traditions in both urban and rural contexts.

The 80-minute documentary focuses on the 9- to 13-year-old girls and how they attempt to fit together the puzzle pieces of their pasts.

The impact that this trip makes on the children and their parents cannot be underestimated. It provides a foundation for additional dialogue and emotional development. Because Chinese adoptions are not "open"--birthparent records are not kept because it is a crime to abandon one's child--few details can be found about an adoptee's background.

Occasionally an adoptee can visit with foster parents or the person who discovered the child and took her to an orphanage. But most find little in their orphanage files.

"Found in China" captures the spontaneity of the children seeing China for the first time since leaving the country as infants or toddlers. The documentary reveals their thoughts about their orphanages, caregivers and the foster families.

The possibilities of searching for birthparents is explored by tour participants, with insights from older Korean adoptees and adoption specialists including Sara Dorow, PhD, best known for her book, "When You Were Born in China."

Filmmaker Carolyn Stanek adopted two Chinese daughters in the early 1990s and thus the documentary includes scenes from their orphanage, Jiande, in Zhejiang province. Other stops on the tour included Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Shanghai for Stanek's family. Scenes from Nanchang and Changsha were also contributed by another family. Stanek's background includes being a reporter for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, a journalism instructor, and author of a book about Title IX (Contemporary Books). She then obtained an MBA from the University of Chicago which enabled her to become a stock analyst for a couple decades.

Returning to her love of journalism, she took filmmaking classes while researching and preparing to produce "Found in China." Music featured in the documentary is from Jonathan Rickert of Berkeley, CA. His rhythms combine the rich lyricism of Asian influence along with downtempo electronic music.

Nell Bryden, a Brooklyn-born vocalist and guitarist, sings "Goodbye" for the closing credits. San Francisco street musician Michael Masley plays his cymbalom (a Hungarian-styled dulcimer) throughout the terra cotta soldiers scene."

Long Wait for Home


When reading my newest addition of Adoptive Families October Issue I learned about a new DVD in their Media Focus Section.

Above is a photo of his new DVD that we just purchased. This DVD is from Dr. Changfu chang, click on this sentence or photo for link. We can't wait for it to arrive and I am sure that we will not be disappointed

Below some information about the DVD "Long Wait for Home". I found this information on Dr. Changfu's web site.

"International adoption has increasingly become a national phenomenon in the United States. In the last two decades, many American families have gone to China to adopt children and to provide them with loving homes. More than ever, American families are exposed to China’s culture and history, and to the awareness of the social, cultural, and economic conditions that lead to the abandonment of children in China.

Despite a surge in media coverage of adoptions from China, there are many unanswered questions: Who are the birth parents and under what circumstances do they decide to give away their babies? How do children end up in orphanages and what kinds of lives do they live there? Moreover, with so many “foreigners” going to China to pick up these Chinese babies, what do the average Chinese people feel and think about Americans and international adoption?

To answer these questions, Dr. Changfu Chang and his team present the widely anticipated documentary, Long Wait For Home. For the first time, we sit face to face with birth parents who share with us the hard decisions they have made and the emotional toll they have suffered; we go to orphanages and take an intimate look at the living conditions of children usually inaccessible to film crews; we also converse with a wide range of ordinary Chinese citizens and scholars on the subject of international adoption.

Long Wait For Home, a work of five dedicated years, and edited out of over 100 hours of footage, is a must-have video for the whole adoptive community. Together with Dr. Chang’s previous productions, this video will be part of a permanent collection in your family library."


Directed, Produced and Written by Dr. Changfu Chang
Associate Director and Producer: Andy Nitchman
Camera : Jiandong Huang, Andy Nitchman & Kevin Fritz
Editing: Andy Nitchman
Narrated by Brett Summers
Music Score by Andrew Zubko
Cover Art:: Tom Groody
Cover Design: Nancy Mata

Approx. Running Time: 50 minutes