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About the Filmmaker

Sheila Ganz completed the documentary Unlocking the Heart of Adoption in 2003.  This 56 minute film bridges the gap between birth and adoptive families through diverse personal stories of adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents in both same race and transracial adoptions who reveal their innermost feelings, fears and joys, and the complexities of the adoption experience.  Transracial adoptions, issues of closed records, historical perspective and the personal story of the filmmaker, who was raped at age 20 and unwillingly relinquished her child, make this film the most comprehensive to date. She searched for and found her daughter.
                                                                                                             
Throughout the film as Ganz tells her story she creates a sculpture using chicken wire, bamboo, burlap and plaster to commemorate the 10 minutes she was allowed to hold her newborn daughter.
 
Ganz does trainings for adoption agencies and conferences.  Adoption agencies, libraries, colleges and universities worldwide use the film as an educational tool.  Ganz wrote a 15 page Workbook with Discussion Guide and 50 page three hour curriculum for the film on the issues of loss and identity with the Child Welfare Institute.  In 2005, the film was launched on public television by the National Educational Telecommunications Association. Ganz is a recipient of the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Angels in Adoption Award. For more info about the film visit: http://www.unlockingtheheart.com

From 2004 to 2007, Ganz was an instructor at Film Arts Foundation. Ganz is an adoption reform advocate testifying before the California House and Senate Judiciary Committees on adult adoptee civil rights and birthmother rights. She has been a guest on television, radio and internet talk shows.  Her ‘Letters to the Editor’ have been published in newspapers nationally. 

Ganz wrote two full-length stage plays, Pretend It Didn’t Happen about her experience as a birthmother and Leaving Joe about domestic violence.  Her site-specific sculptures have been exhibited at the Moscone Center, Golden Gate Park and Bernal Heights in San Francisco, the Paul F. Romberg Center in Tiburon and was commissioned to make a site-specific work for Shenandoah Vineyards in Plymouth, CA.  She has taught sculpture at San Francisco State University, and sculpture and hand bookmaking at The Art School, San Francisco, CA.

Sheila's artwork page 1              Sheila's artwork page 2                    Sheila's artwork page 3

Ganz attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and completed her studies at San Francisco State University, earning a BA in Sculpture and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts.  Ganz is a martial artist and earned her Black Belt in Karate at Karate Do in San Francisco. 

Ganz's experiences have led to her own self-healing and deep commitment to contribute to the empowerment of others. Here is what she has to say about making On Life's Terms: Mothers in Recovery:

        "In 1969, I was in a Booth Memorial Home for Unwed Mothers, where I was given no choice but to relinquish my newborn daughter for adoption.  I always wondered… ‘Why can’t there be homes to help mothers keep their children?’  I looked for a program that does this and found Center Point, Inc.  I called Dr. Sushma Taylor, their Chief Executive Officer, told her my idea and met with the top staff.  They were very responsive to my making the film and gave their permission.  I met with the women and told them my story and asked for volunteers.
        Losing my daughter to adoption was nearly devastating.  My art saved me.  The unacknowledged devastation for a mother who loses custody of her child and is suffering from addiction can lead to a downward spiral.  It is my hope that On Life's Terms will inspire women to seek help and that policy makers will see the value of family-centered gender specific programs and fund more of these treatment programs."

Please contact us at: 415.564.3691 or sheila@onlifesterms.org if you or your group would like to host a fundraising screening.

                                

(c) 2012 Sheila Ganz