This independently produced feature documentary ONLY CHILD: A WOMAN’S COURAGEOUS SEARCH FOR IDENTITY, directed, edited and produced by Mississauga-based prolific commercial editor, Andy Ames, is an 86-minute part personal, part investigative documentary that chronicles a 60-year old adoptee from Dublin, Marise Keane’s 20-year journey as she navigates the misogynistic landscape of Ireland’s past.
Throughout the 20th century, thousands of Irish women who found themselves pregnant outside of marriage were coerced into giving their babies up for adoption. Women were abandoned by the society that should have protected them, and their children were secretly punished under harsh Catholic rule, largely adopted out of the country, their legal identity concealed.
Amidst countless tragic stories, this film follows one such child on a hopeful path of discovery. As an adult adoptee, Marise Keane decides to embark on a search for her birth mother. With only a name and place of birth in hand, town records led Marise down a winding path of roadblocks and dead ends until she reluctantly put the search to rest. After emotionally recovering from previous disappointments, she traced a distant cousin, leading to a cup of coffee that would change her life forever.
The film also features prominent speakers on the subject of adoption including Philomena Lee and her daughter Jane Libberton, Mary Lawlor and Susan Lohan of The Adoption Rights Alliance, representatives of Barnardos Post Adoption Services, as well as various scholars, artists, academics and politicians. These voices contour an ensemble of characters that make up the families involved in Marise’s journey, in Ireland (including the wife of late-author Dermot Healy), England as well as across Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia.