Sunshine

20092009
1h 12m

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

YOUR RATING

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.

In this compelling documentary, filmmaker Karen Skloss explores the meaning of family through a personal journey to understand both the legacy of her birth and the non-traditional family she created by co-parenting with her ex-boyfriend. As an unwed teenager, Skloss's mother went to a home for unwed mothers and gave her up for adoption in 1975. Now as the pair reconnects, as Karen contemplates her relationship with her own daughter, Jasmine. Young, pregnant, single and unprepared, the daughter/director struggles with the incredible ironies of the familyÂ—that history somehow repeated itself, and that the most strenuous efforts to protect the idea of family can actually do the most to pull families apartÂ.

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.

Play trailer1:51

1 Video

Photos

Documentary Biography Drama

It all starts with getting knocked up. An unplanned pregnancy for an unplanned girl sets off SUNSHINE, a playful, yet ultimately stirring self-portrait of an adopted woman driven to search f... Read allIt all starts with getting knocked up. 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. Intimate and gripping, SUNSHIN... Read allIt all starts with getting knocked up. 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. Intimate and gripping, SUNSHINE offers a refreshingly rare glimpse on the current day transformations taking place withi... Read all

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Karen Skloss
Stars
- Stephen Beck Fey
- Tessa Beck Fey
- Karen Skloss(voice)

See production, box office & company info

1User review

See more at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Featured review

9/10

A Fascinating Look at Society's Changing Attitudes towards Single Motherhood

Sunshine, which premiered at Austin's SXSW Film Festival in 2009, is a compelling examination of how our concepts of single motherhood are changing. Director Karen Skloss cleverly compares her own experience as a single mother who chose to raise her child on her own with the cooperation of her former boyfriend with her mother's experience a generation before. Her mother was sent to a home for unwed mothers and gave her up for adoption in a society that had no space for the "unwed" mother. Her film capturing their parallel journeys is really an examination of social change as our society has become both more permissive and more open-minded. The documentary is surprisingly non-judgmental and lets the characters tell their stories without anger or animosity. The filming is done lovingly and thoughtfully and a single family's story is allowed to act as a barometer for examining the transformation of the broader American family. This is a wonderful film for educating people to gain a better understanding of single motherhood. Hopefully, it will gain a wider audience.

helpful•2