Unlocking the Heart of Adoption chronicles the filmmaker’s journey as a birthmother interwoven with diverse personal stories of adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents in both same race and transracial adoptions. These stories span 70 years, from ALICE, a birthmother whose child was adopted out without her consent in 1922; to RON, an adoptee who uncovered the truth after his parents died when he was 36; to PHYLLIS, a birthmother and ALISON, an adoptive mother in an open adoption with twin boys born in 1991. The film includes interviews with three mixed-race transracially adopted people: DEBBIE, a Japanese American woman; PAUL, a Filipino American man and MARTIN, an African American man with HAL, his Caucasian adoptive father.
Adoption Today: December/January 2006 by Richard Fischer, Editor

"Sheila Ganz’s Unlocking the Heart of Adoption is a superb teaching tool for courses on adoption. This elegantly constructed documentary film introduces U.S. adoption’s recent history and basic themes and provides a dramatic and moving perspective on the powerful emotions adoption can arouse. Tracing several adoption stories among triad members and across the life-span, through interviews that honor all points of view, the film leads viewers into a richly dimensional understanding of the conflicts, joys, and sorrows of adoption. My students were very glad to have seen Ganz’s film; it launched a fine discussion to which we will return again and again." Margaret Homans, Professor of English and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University

"This documentary interweaves an examination of adoption with producer Ganz’s story of rape, unwed pregnancy, and giving up her child for adoption. Diverse perspectives of adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth mothers and fathers show both the pros and cons of opening adoption records to adults. The video reveals a wide spectrum of emotions entailed by adoption, from negative adoptee reactions to legal issues and changing social mores. The film accurately portrays the history of adoption in the United States, featuring black-and-white snapshots of orphanages in the mid-1880’s, as well as foster care and the selection process of adoptive parents today. This video strongly advocates adoptees’ rights to search for their birth certificates and to locate birth parents. The color, stereo sound, and audio quality are solid." Recommended for high school and adult audiences. Library Journal: April 2003 by Mary M. Nofsinger, Washington State University, Pullman