A Girl Like Her
| A Girl Like Her | |
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 |
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| Directed by | Ann Fessler |
| Produced by | Ann Fessler |
| Music by | Mike Reid and Jacqueline Schwab |
| Edited by | Ann Fessler, Online Editor Mike Majoros |
| Distributed by | (North America) Women Make Movies, (Europe) Journeyman Pictures, Distributor (Home Use, US/CA) Circle A Studio |
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Release date
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2012 |
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Running time
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48 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
A Girl Like Her (2012 Film) is a feature length American documentary film by Ann Fessler about women who lost children to adoption in the United States between the end of World War II and the early 1970s due to the social pressures of the time, in a period now known as the Baby Scoop Era. Fessler combines the voices of the women with footage from educational films and newsreels about dating, sex, “illegitimate” pregnancy and adoption. The women’s stories unfold over footage of life in post-World War II America. Educational films offer guidance about dating and sex, and scripted newsreels shed light on adoption in an era when secrecy prevailed and adoptable babies were thought to be “unwanted” by their mothers. As the footage illuminates the past, the women’s stories form a collective narrative as they recount their experiences of dating, pregnancy, family reaction, banishment, and the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives.
Fessler, a documentary filmmaker, installation artist, and author, began working with the subject of adoption in 1989 after being approached by a woman who thought Ann was the daughter she had relinquished 40 years earlier. Though the woman was not her mother, Fessler, an adoptee, was deeply moved by the woman’s story.
She subsequently produced several autobiographical installations on adoption; two featured her previous short films Cliff & Hazel about her adoptive family, and Along the Pale Blue River (2001/2013) about her search for a yearbook picture of her mother. At each installation site, Fessler invited audience members to write and post their own adoption stories and based on the anonymous stories left behind by first mothers, she initiated an oral history project to collect the women’s stories.
In 2002, Fessler began interviewing women who lost children to adoption between 1945-1973, when an unprecedented 1.5 million babies were surrendered under tremendous social pressure. In 2003 she was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to continue her academic research, interviews, and archival footage research. A Girl Like Her ultimately took 10 years to complete.
While at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, Fessler also began writing a non-fiction book based on her research and the oral histories she was collecting. By 2005 she had collected 100 stories from women living in every region of the United States. The Girls Who Went Away: the Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade , places the women’s stories within the social history of the time period and Fessler’s story as an adoptee. It was a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2006 and received the Women’s Way Ballard Book Prize in 2008, a prize given annually to a female author who makes a significant contribution to the dialogue about women’s rights.
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