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].