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Institutional Use - Click here.
*Includes both the 73 minute feature and a 53 minute classroom versions

Home Use - Coming soon

SUNSHINE

The Changing Face of Families: From 'Unwed Mother' to 'Single Mom' Through One Woman's Personal Story

A real life tale of two unplanned pregnancies, a home for unwed mothers, changing times and the meaning of family.

73 minutes, 53 minutes (classroom version)
DVD (both versions included)
(Trailer available, see below)
Color / Stereo
Grade Level: 8-12, College, Adult
US Release Date: 2010
Copyright Date: 2009

Directed by Karen Skloss
Executive Producer for ITVS - Sally Jo Fifer
A Co-Production of Neighborhood Films LLC, HoustonPBS and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Note: It is a violation of copyright law to host a public screening of a film using the home DVD. In order to stay legal and support the filmmakers who made SUNSHINE, rent or buy one of our Public Performance DVDs for your event. The filmmaker is available to speak at screenings. If you would like to book her to speak at your screening, please email Megan Gilbride at thistimeitsmrglib@gmail.com. If you would like to also purchase posters to promote your screening, call us or email us at sunshinethemovie@gmail.com.

An unplanned pregnancy for an unplanned girl sets off SUNSHINE, a playful, yet ultimately stirring self-portrait of an adopted woman driven to search for answers through reconnection with her biological mother. Woven together from over 10 years of super 8 and video home movies, intimate family interviews, shimmering dance sequences and stylized reenactments, SUNSHINE offers a refreshingly rare glimpse on the current day transformations taking place within our most sacred of institutions, the family.

Uplifting and empowering, the film is designed to spark progressive debate over current-day family issues and serve as a unifying force by creating common ground for women, child and family advocates across political lines.

Press:

"Sunshine" provides an important revelation of the histories, reticences, and worries, as well as glories and triumphs, of changing perspectives on single-parenting. This is a genuinely innovative and touching film which deals admirably and tenderly with everyone."
Janet Staiger, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, University of Texas at Austin

"Profoundly affecting. Even resistant guys will find themselves melting in this radiant Sunshine."
Chris Garcia - Austin-American Statesman

"Skloss' life could be the premise of a Lifetime original movie - if Lifetime original movies were interesting."
David Hudson - IFC

"I can't quite figure out why this film so overwhelmed me…there have been movies much more connected to me emotionally that didn't affect me this way."
Louis Black - Editor Austin Chronicle

"A beautifully made self-portrait"
Paul Stekler, Texas Monthly

World Premiere — 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival
Coming this spring on PBS's national series, Independent Lens