BOSTON, MA (PRWEB) August 10, 2005
Individuals eager to see an honest, balanced portrayal of adoption on television now have the opportunity to be a part of the process to make it happen, with the launch of AdoptionFilm.org, a Web site intended to attract individual support for a proposed documentary. "Adoption: An American Revolution" (working title), is a special project for national public television broadcast that will include a two-hour film, an extensive Web site and an ambitious outreach campaign to schools and communities. The film will use interviews with adoptive and birth parents and extended families, with adopted children and adults, and adoption professionals and experts to explore the major impact that adoption is having on private and public life in America.
Program producer WGBH has already secured partial funding for the project from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), but that grant came with a deadline: final funding needs to be in place by the end of 2005. So WGBH is turning directly to viewers for the support needed to produce the project, recognizing that the real story of how adoption is changing America has the potential to appeal to the millions of Americans who are directly affected. One-third of people in the US now have someone in their family who was adopted, and many more have friends and neighbors who were adopted.
The projectÂs executive producer, Judith Vecchione, calls this Âa revolution in adoption and points to huge changes in Americans attitudes towards adoption -- from a time, not so long ago, when some parents lied to their own children about being adopted, to todayÂs view of adoption as another wonderful way to form a family. ÂBut these changes are rarely reflected in the media, which still portrays adoption with negative stereotypes and shows like ÂWhoÂs Your Daddy? she says. ÂWe want to bring to our viewers the real story of adoption in the US today.Â
Visitors to http://www.adoptionfilm.org can:
Learn more about the fundraising effort and the entire ÂAdoption: An American Revolution project;
Meet some of the ÂFaces of Adoption and add your own;
Read the ÂFilmmakers Journal for a behind-the-scenes look at how public television programs are developed;
Make a secure donation to support the production of ÂAdoption: An American Revolution;Â
Follow our progress by signing up for our e-mail newsletter;
Help us ÂSpread the Word by sending information on the project to others you think might be interested, or use our toolkit to establish a link to AdoptionFilm.org.
"WeÂre very excited about this new opportunity," says WGBH Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jon Abbott. ÂFunding from viewers has always been critically important to sustaining public television at both the local and the national level, but we've never had a mechanism for our broad range of viewers to directly support production of new programs. Now viewers can add their contributions Âin any amount -- to the projects that matter most to them.Â
WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting producer, the source of fully one-third of PBS's prime-time lineup, along with some of public television's best-known lifestyle shows and children's programs and many public radio favorites. Its production menu is diverse, including Nova, Frontline, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, Masterpiece Theatre, Arthur, and Zoom on PBS and The World and Sound & Spirit on public radio. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards even two Oscars.
Contact:
Lisa Cerqueira
617-300-5334
lisa_cerqueira@wgbh.org
###