By Sarah Hinckley, Times Argus
MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT — A Middlebury family’s trip to the other side of the world to bring a daughter home is the subject of one of the films featured at the Green Mountain Film Festival’s Vermont Filmmakers Showcase on March 29.
Dave Raizman and Jim Ritvo, the local filmmakers behind “One Family: An Ethiopian Adoption,” will be at the 10 a.m. event. A discussion will follow the show.
Recording of the 35-minute film was done in 10 days in the summer of 2004. It involved shooting up to 40 hours of video footage and traversing Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, home to two million people.
“It was very fast and we just sort of hit the ground running,” said Raizman, who lives in Adamant. “When we went, we weren’t really sure what the scope of the story was going to be. When we left, we came away with this powerful story of this family.”
The film highlights a couple from Middlebury who have two sons, and their effort to adopt a 10-year-old girl from Ethiopia. Both of her parents are dead and her relatives who remain cannot afford to raise her, so she lives in an orphanage. According to Ritvo, adoptions in Ethiopia are on the rise, with approximately 1,200 a year.
“Really that’s a drop in the bucket,” said Raizman. “There’s a million (orphans), you’re talking about 1 percent.”
The children are well cared for, he adds. Ethiopia has an affectionate culture and the orphans do not lack for human touch.
“In Ethiopia everybody picks up kids,” said Raizman. “These orphans seem to be in better emotional shape than we’ve seen in other countries.”
Although the Vermont mother had traveled to Ethiopia before, the family had no say in who they would adopt. Any cultural, color or continental differences that may have been an issue were non-existent, both filmmakers said.
“We saw a kid and a family bond, like, instantly,” said Raizman. “This girl is ready to love and they’re ready for her. … She was their daughter. There were just no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
The idea for the movie came to Raizman and Ritvo via a suggestion from a third party. Each man owns his own production company and the two have collaborated on a number of projects over the last seven years.
“I think we’re storytellers and it sounded like a good story,” said Ritvo of Montpelier. “We hadn’t thought boo about it. … It’s had a nice response in reviews and film festivals.”
The New England filmmakers learned a few lessons while in the African country. Ritvo’s luggage did not arrive until the day before they left for home. As he put it, “I was the largest man in Ethiopia,” and was unable to find a pair of pants that fit. His wearing the same clothes for several days was not something the people of Addis Ababa noticed.
“We have so much that we just take for granted in this culture,” said Ritvo, who was impressed with the generosity of those who had nothing, yet offered so much. “We were crying a lot.”
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Contact Sarah Hinckley at [email protected].
6 thoughts on “One family, two filmmakers’ journey to Ethiopia”
I’m so glad to hear that someone from another country witness as the Greek historian Herodotus did long time ago that “Ethiopia has an affectionate culture and the orphans do not lack for human touch.” It is true Ethiopians are different from some other countries when it comes to be compassionate about the helpless. They always love to help, to hag, to laugh, and to cry; even though they are poor, they still would like to drop their last penny into the coffer like that biblical widow.
cool article
Hi Assta B. Gettu,
“Ethiopians are compassionate about helpless”, and it is the most and, may be, the only country (on its frequent famine and hunger, almost every year) known for its hunger and famine, and deathes. What a paradox?
Thanks
We have our own difficulties,but that doesn’t still made us inhumane or hostile to children to the extent that we throw orphans to the dogs as senator inhoffe said.I recommend this article to the senator.
Dear CUCU,
Are you telling me that if Ethiopians are compassionate about other helpless Ethiopians, these natural and man-mad disasters such as famine, hunger, draught, and many other diseases would never happen? To tell you the truth, I grew up in Ethiopia and have visited most of the provinces, and I don’t have to quote Herodotus about the generosities, compassions, and kindness of the Ethiopian people. I have seen Ethiopians helping other Ethiopians: For example, during harvest season, I have seen some young Ethiopians harvesting the other Ethiopian person’s field because the person who owned the field was sick and could not do it by himself. I have seen other Ethiopians building a house for another helpless Ethiopian. I have seen men and women going to the funeral service of a poor man who died of age but no one knew from where he was. I have seen this multitude of good Ethiopians encouraging, supporting, feeding, sheltering, clothing, and inspiring thousands of helpless Ethiopians. Of course, we may have some greedy, selfish, dishonest, immoral, mendacious, and heartless Ethiopians whose identities are not hidden from the rest of other Ethiopians, and such greedy people are the products of modern education. So I don’t see where the paradoxical statements are at this point.
Ethiopia was the first country which arrived in germany and holland with a ship of wheat, balnkets and sheep to help those who were in need of food, shelter and even meat after the end of the WW2 even if ethiopia had been fighting for five years against italia’s invasion of ethiopia. WE, ethiopians have really a blessed and fertile soil with so many riviers,on the other hand we have so many enemies because of our country’s fertility and geo -political location. It was ethiopia which accepted the first 15 muslims who were immigrated from suadiarabia and gave them shelter.So charity begon and ends in ethiopia.