Georgia

Georgia is a narrative short film based on my true story as a child taken from a Greek orphanage in the 1960s. In Athens, my young mother is ordered to surrender her baby boy to the State. In a crowded courtroom, she is given one last chance to hold me and say her final goodbye. The film captures my mother’s last goodbye and places it inside the wider, little-known Greek adoption scandal, when thousands of children were sent overseas, and their families were left without answers. I was one of those children, and this film is my way of standing beside the young woman who never stopped loving her son.

This campaign will finance the production and impact work for Georgia, to be filmed on location in Athens with a Greek and international cast and crew. Our goal is to honor this one mother and child while speaking to countless others who lost one another on paper but not in their hearts. Funds will support locations, period design and visual effects to recreate 1960s Athens, post-production, subtitles, festival submissions, and outreach screenings with adoption, child-welfare, and human-rights organizations. Our initial fundraising milestone is $400,000 toward a larger $1.7 million goal covering production and a global impact and education strategy.

I am an international television and film producer with over 40 years of experience. Born in Athens and raised in the United States, I have worked across television and film worldwide, served two terms on the National Board of the Producers Guild of America, and am a member of the Television Academy and BAFTA. My recent refugee documentary Another Place has played at international festivals and secured digital distribution. Georgia is the first film under my new company, Legitimate Son, devoted to stories of identity, belonging, and justice.

Georgia is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Georgia must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thank you for helping us turn this lost courtroom moment into a story the world can finally see.