Brown Alum’s Film On Adopted Chinese Girls Opens in Providence

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Tracey Minkin, GoLocalProv Features Editor

Filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton returns to Providence, home of her alma mater, Brown University, this weekend to screen her new documentary and share not only the stories of the film, but her own personal one as well.

Somewhere Between, which opens October 19 at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence, and runs through October 25th, profiles the lives of four Chinese adoptees in contemporary America. The film follows teenagers Haley, Jenna, Ann, and Fan, as they discuss that uniquely human question, "Who Am I?", growing up in a culture so different from that of their birthplace.

A personal inspiration

For Goldstein Knowlton, who will appear with Jenna and Haley at the Cable Car at a reception on October 21, this film began in a personal journey of her own. "My [7-year-old] daughter's name is Ruby Goldstein Knowlton," she says. "When my husband and I adopted her from China, we had no idea what lay ahead. We became a family in an instant. But as I began to think about Ruby's future, I started to wonder how her coming of age would differ from mine."

Goldstein Knowlton says she began talking to older girls who'd been adopted from China, brought to the US, "and plunged into a world not just of identity but of what it means to be who we are."

The meaning of family, the cultural disconnect between stereotyping and race

Goldstein Knowlton, whose work includes the documentary, The World According to Sesame Street, as well as producing the films, Whale Rider and The Shipping News, turned her camera on the lives of these four teen girls. "Through their specific stories," she says, "we as viewers come to understand more fully the meaning of family and the ever prevalent cultural disconnect between stereotyping and race--whether we are adoptive families or not."

The film was a Sundance Channel's People's Choice Award winner at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, and took the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Milwaukee Film Festival. Goldstein Knowlton says I hopes Somewhere Between will start a dialogue about what we see, who we are, and the changing face of the American family.  "This film is about these four girls, and the 79,562 girls growing up in America," she says "Right now."

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For film times all week, go to the Cable Car Cinema website, here.

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