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Filmmaker Bio
Sheila Ganz, MA, is writer, director,
producer, camera and
editor. She 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. Throughout the film, as Ganz tells her story, she
constructs a sculpture of a mother holding her baby in a hospital bed using chicken wire,
bamboo, burlap and plaster. She searched for and found her daughter in 1988.
Ganz does trainings for adoption agencies and conferences. Nearly 100
adoption agencies around the country and in Bermuda, England and Canada use the film as an
educational tool. Dozens of college and university courses in social work, nursing,
women's studies, ethnic studies and family law use the film. Ganz wrote a Workbook
and 3 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
NETA, National Educational Telecommunications Association. For more information 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 and radio talk shows. Her ‘Letters to the
Editor’ have been published in newspapers nationally.
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 in 1982 and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts in 1985. In 1984, Ganz earned
her Black Belt in Karate. 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 Shenandaoh
Vineyards in Plymouth, CA. She has written two full-length plays, Pretend It
Didn’t Happen about her experience as a birthmother and Leaving Joe
about domestic violence.
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 Moms Living Clean:
"In 1969, I was in a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers for the last two
months of my pregnancy 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 wanted this to be the subject of my next film
and then I found Center Point, Inc. I called Dr. Sushma Taylor, their Chief
Executive Officer, told her my idea and I met with her top staff. They were very
responsive to my making the film. It felt like the perfect match."
Please contact us at: 415.564.3691 or
momslivingclean@att.net
if you or your group would like to host a fundraising screening.
(c) 2009 Sheila Ganz
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