Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America will be airing on Airing on KCSM in San Francisco Oakland San Jose CA and KRSC in Tulsa OK. Check your local listing for date & time. Ths is part of The National Black Programming Consortium’s 18.5 hours of Programs about the Black Experience this September on PBS. For more information on public television broadcasts in your area, check www.itvs.org/outsidelookingin.

Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America introduces three families with transracially adopted children of three different generations, growing up in three different regions of the country.

As both adoptee and filmmaker, the director, Phil Bertelsen provides a unique perspective that goes beyond the personal. He shares his own adoption story as he examines his 11-year-old nephew’s adoption (the second generation of transracial adoptions for the Bertelsen family). Phil encourages his nephew Philip to explore and proclaim a black identity of his own, with results that convey important lessons of identity and self-awareness to both uncle and nephew separately. The film also records a rare and emotionally powerful moment - the exchange of a baby from birth parent to adoptive parent - as it reveals the dramatic story of a Midwestern white couple adopting a black baby today.

As America struggles to understand and address its own racial history, Outside Looking In captures the complexity of being physically bonded to one race and emotionally bonded to another. The film supplies a voice to those directly affected by adoption and explores larger topics facing our society: race, family and identity.

* World Premiere at the Hollywood Black Film Festival, 2002. Screened at Riverside Church, NY, Harlem Film Festival, Newark Black Film Festival, Hollywood Black Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival and Roxbury Film Festival. A selection of National Video Resources’ Viewing Race series.
* Broadcast on public television in 2002.
* A Presentation of the Independent Television Service. Additional funding provided by the National Black Programming Consortium.

DIRECTOR:

Phil Bertelsen

PRODUCER:

Katy Chevigny

CO-PRODUCER:

Dallas Brennan

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:

Quincy Jones Media Group

EDITOR:

Emma Joan Morris

CAMERA:

John Foster and Alejandro Smith

MUSIC:

Erin O'Hara

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