A Quiet Girl

Mar 1, 2024

1h 26m

★ 0.0

How far do you go to find the truth?

Overview

Adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills discovers, on camera and in real time, the startling truths of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Shocking details drive Wills to the core of his birth mother’s resilience, and ultimately his own. In this moving feature documentary that combines 16mm footage and contemporary images with deeply personal conversations, Wills’ voyage transforms from an urgent search for identity into a quest to give a quiet girl her voice.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

ONF | NFB

A Quiet Girl Trailers

Cast

Himself

Adrian Wills

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

8.1

My Flesh and Blood

Apr 25, 2003

My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.

0.0

Vistas: Red Ochre

Jan 1, 2009

Combining archival photos with new and found footage, this short film presents a personal, impressionistic rendering of what it's like growing up Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, while living in a culture of denial. Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.

0.0

Through Your Eyes

Feb 6, 2026

In an effort to understand where she came from, Fabiola asked a question that became the central phrase of the film: what would my life have been like if I'd stayed in Haiti? Taking as her starting point her biological mother's precarious economic situation, she had no choice but to entrust her daughter to her care. Fabiola could have ended up restavek, or in a loving foster family, or on the streets abandoned to her fate, or adopted abroad.

0.0

Handcrafted Hopedale

Oct 1, 2015

If you want to find world-class artisans, the small northern Labrador community of Hopedale offers you some of the best. Created through the St. John's International Women's Film Festival's FRAMED film education series, in partnership with the Nunatsiavut government, this film focuses on three prominent local craftspeople- two carvers and one traditional sewist.

7.3

Three Identical Strangers

Jun 29, 2018

New York, 1980. Three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds' joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives – and could transform our understanding of human nature forever.

7.3

Twinsters

Jul 17, 2015

Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.

No Image Available

0.0

Wo Ai Ni Mommy

Aug 31, 2010

From 2000 to 2008, China was the leading country for U.S. international adoptions. There are now approximately 70,000 Chinese adoptees being raised in the United States. Ninety-five percent of them are girls. Each year, these girls face new questions regarding their adopted lives and surroundings. This is a film about Chinese adopted girls, their American adoptive families and the paradoxical losses and gains inherent in international adoption. The characters and events in this story will challenge our traditional notions of family, culture and race.

0.0

Loyal to My Image

Apr 10, 1992

Through one woman's experience as an adopted person and also as a mother who relinquished her child in 1971, this documentary highlights the many complex issues associated with adoption.

No Image Available

0.0

To My Birthmother...

Jan 1, 2002

No overview available.

0.0

Hospital City

Sep 15, 2004

As debate in Canada and the world rages over health care, Hospital City offers a moving, human portrait of the people whom the issues touch most closely.

8.0

Me & You

Jul 4, 2014

Jackie Miller adopted her son, Scott, in the early 1970s. In 2008, Scott brought his mom to StoryCorps to ask her about that decision.

6.0

Moon Child

Oct 12, 2018

A movie about two women who are mothers to the same child, and a child who belongs to two different worlds.

0.0

A Passage from Burnt Islands

Mar 1, 1992

In his crusade for literacy, principal Ray Brown enlisted the help of the community and broke through the cycle of illiteracy in a small Newfoundland fishing village. He turned the struggling elementary school into a place where students were eager to learn and instilled in parents a sense of hope for their children's future.

0.0

Daughter of a Lost Bird

Mar 25, 2021

What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee, born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.

7.4

Somewhere Between

Aug 24, 2012

Questions of race, identity and heritage are explored through the lives of young American women growing up as adoptees from China. These four distinct individuals reflect on their experiences as members of transracial families.

9.0

Adoption International: A Global Scandal

Nov 12, 2024

In the collective imagination, international adoption evokes images of children being saved from a life of destitution in poorer countries by being adopted by families in Europe or America. But the reality that has emerged is one of child trafficking, falsified documents and governments around the world turning a blind eye.

0.0

De Chinese keizerin

Sep 23, 2024

Despite the warm images in the family archive, photographer and filmmaker Jonnah misses an intimate bond with her (adoptive) parents. Over the years, a wall has been built between them that Jonnah is now trying to break down with her parents.

8.0

The Twinning Reaction

Jan 1, 2017

An astounding exposé that gives voice to the unwitting subjects of an infamous American scientific experiment: the 1960s Neubauer-Bernard study of separated twins. Told from the perspective of the Jewish identical twins and triplets who were secretly split up in infancy and adopted through Louise Wise Services, a Jewish adoption agency, the documentary examines the traumatic, long-term effects of the separations — and continuing deception — on the children and their adoptive families.

10.0

MUM Misunderstandings of Miscarriage

Oct 1, 2020

At age 31, after experiencing her second miscarriage, Tahyna MacManus was devastated, lost, angry and, despite those around her, felt terribly alone. She picked up a camera and started to record her story and in doing so found her tribe. Resilient, courageous women speaking of their sadness, their shame and their guilt while still holding onto hope. Tahyna discovers that 1 in 4 Australian women experience miscarriage so why aren’t we talking about it? In this highly intimate journey, Tahyna is on a mission to lift the lid on all that shame, provide some answers and make sure that women no longer walk this path alone. But first, she has to face her own fears.

A Quiet Girl

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

A Quiet Girl Trailers