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

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.

1.0

On Putin's Blacklist

Oct 26, 2017

Traces the new Cold War between Russia and the West from the ban on American citizens adopting Russian children to the Kremlin’s anti-LGBTQ campaign, which positions the international marriage equality movement as a national threat.

0.0

HAND. LINE. COD.

Sep 14, 2016

In the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland's rugged Fogo Island, "people of the fish"—traditional fishers—catch cod live by hand, one at a time, by hook and line. After a 20-year moratorium on North Atlantic cod, the stocks are returning. These fishers are leading a revolution in sustainability, taking their premium product directly to the commercial market for the first time. Travel with them from the early morning hours, spend time on the ocean, and witness the intricacies of a 500-year-old tradition that's making a comeback.

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.

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.

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.

0.0

Too Late

Jul 8, 2025

On a night like any other, Helena, a 12-year-old girl marked by troubles at home, is taken from her mother and placed into foster care. Now, she must face a new reality while waiting for a home. But with time passing and wounds still fresh, will there still be a chance for a new beginning — or will it be too late?

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.

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.

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.

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.

8.0

State Owned Children

Sep 1, 2021

Following in the footsteps of two women in search of their origins, this documentary lifts the veil on a little-known page of the post-war era: the adoption, as part of a cross-border program, of thousands of children born during the French occupation of Germany.

6.0

Dawnland

Jun 14, 2018

They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? "Dawnland" is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation's first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.

10.0

El Universo de la Pequeña S

Invalid Date

No overview available.

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.

No Image Available

5.2

Life Happens

Nov 1, 2010

Life Happens deals with the topic of abortion in a unique, personal and ultimately uplifting way. Director Ash Greyson, who was nearly aborted just months before the Roe vs Wade decision, sets out on a journey to find others like him. In the process he uncovers the divisive issues, eventually finds some common ground, and seals it all up with compelling first person stories from mothers and children who narrowly escaped abortion. While pulling no punches, he skillfully replaces rhetoric and religion with hope and heart in what may be the most approachable film ever created on the topic.

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.

A Quiet Girl

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

A Quiet Girl Trailers