The film is deeply moving and I cried. First I want to say you don't have to be adopted to wonder and long for answers regarding your roots and also fear the answers. Only after getting my 1st letter published in The New York Times re: Bruno Schulz's art and the Holocaust in context to my own feelings as a Jew and an artist was I finally given just one name and that was on my paternal side of someone we lost in the Holocaust. While I flew to Israel my Dad flew to Europe. The borders changed but he attempted to visit the last location where his Uncle went to visit our relatives and was murdered. His guide said he could not find the address but we had our doubts. I was finally given just one small clue but I really have gotten very little info pre the Holocaust what brought our families on both sides here, only tears. Their generation is the opposite of the technology generation. They simply do not talk of those times.
I also had to tell my family and friends because I spoke up for a 56 year old African American woman who was homeless, now in jail, poor people's rehab fighting the exploitation by a local white man that took photo of her topless when she was drunk and than he stalked and hunted with his camera so set up a comment section of hate. That he took a picture in true stalking style without my knowledge and if it was a gun -- it couldn't get more cowardly -- shot in the back from a distance although he blew it up like a target with me in the center. He approves comments and he only approved comments, all anonymous and I believe related to an aggravated harassment complaint I have file and another page which has no photo of me but shows an obsession and hatred. The comments by his gang of hate mongers are anti-Semitic, misogynist and gay bashing. I was filming a young woman singing and this hate monger made posted comments homophobic anti-Semitic and racist. The funny thing is I am not gay but why all the hate and lies about me from this stalker who goes out of his way to secretly grab of photo. He tells people I am obsessed with him but than why is he shooting me and I have no pictures of him nor do I want any. He tells anyone stupid enough to listen that I am obsessed with him but he doesn't tell them that asked me to have his baby after giving me a photo of a hawk from Tompkins. He is way too old and not stable but who knew just below the surface was anti-Semite? He told me I take a lot for granted and I pointed out so did he. He proposed I have two babies including a big old fat one. He tells people I am childish without telling them the demands and responsibilities he want to put on me and not contributed much of anything. I never kissed this man although once on the street he leaned off and kissed me on the cheek. He was drunk. It was gross and Karl who was homeless was leaning against a building. I thought the difference between Karl and him was a home. How can you ask someone to take on the responsibility of a baby which is awesome and not be willing to take some responsibility? That was what was so powerful about the lesbian Moms in the film and their dedication to their children. The dedication is powerful.
Right now I am deeply repulsed by cowardly men that blame women for what they are guilty of aka know as cowards.
Right now I am deeply repulsed by cowardly men that blame women for what they are guilty of aka know as cowards.
I would rather be gay and have an unconventional family as pictured in this moving documentary than have ever gotten involved with a man that posts comments of hate and takes photos of women approving comments that are hateful as were comments disparaging an African American woman who has been mostly homeless and living at poverty level except right now while she endures an extended stay in prison. Note: I also had a man in his twenties off to give me a baby. He already had one living in Europe but he was honest enough to let me know he would contribute nothing but he does fly to Europe to see his daughter. I continue to wait and wonder if I will have a child or donating my white bloods cells to two people in need are as close as I am going to get. To know I participated in a two hour donations with others to vigorously fight for their lives, one a young girls with Non-Hodgkin's and one I was told was a Hispanic male with lymphoma maybe the closest I will come. I know Gays are fighting for equal rights and I support them but I have never been married or lived a main stream coupled existence. Being a single woman one endures immense prejudice often. I guess being different and also gay bashed makes me very simpatico with the Gay community.
This film moved me deeply. I experienced "petite--mort" -- I call it a little death but it was much bigger as a teen for myself and clearly for Avery, the African American teenager who is the center of this film. I have a complex analysis that hits on one piece that is not discussed but I felt hinted in the silent expression of her Jewish Mom Tova who usually always has something to say. Let us say "the complicated facets" of Avery's world come together in a quiet cataclysm. Avery does self destruct but finally finds some kind of equilibrium and some sort of self acceptance.
Deeply, deeply moving and I loved her family including her brothers. The eldest also brought me to tears. I have done volunteer work with pre-school handicap children and sometimes I knew the children were born addicted to drugs and sadly had all kinds of complex challenging issues. One child I felt a connection with resembled a thalidomide baby but he was truly loved by his mom and by her family. There was even a battle over who would raise him. It was along time ago but I can still seem him in mind and although he could not speak, he said so much with his eyes and he found ways to communicate. Love is love is love....even when faced with the reality of the flaws and disappointments.
This young man in the film was able to recover from the birth challenges but the birth brother he tracked down did have complications. He is stunning with green eyes and light black skin. He responds to the difference between he and his birth brother's development by turning his energies to Science where he is now studying at Princeton.
This movie is powerful and I won't tell you anymore. See the film. It is about an unconventional American family although I have never met a real conventional one.
I have never been married. My maternal grandfather was born in a tenement house here on the Lower East Side on Ludlow Street. I never thought I would be the victim of cyber stalking gay bashing anti-semitism - racism here in NYC but the more things change the more they stay the same.
If you have a heart this film will touch yours. You don't have to be gay or Jewish but love must be essentially to you.
