My Flesh and Blood (2003)

Director:

Jonathan Karsh

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

Who says you can't choose your family?

Plot:

Documentary following Susan Tom of Fairfield, California and her 11 adopted special needs children. |

Plot Keywords:

Cystic Fibrosis

Awards:

6 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Anthony Tom	...	Himself
Faith Tom	...	Herself
Joe Tom	...	Himself
Margaret Tom	...	Herself
Susan Tom	...	Herself
Xenia Tom	...	Herself

Directed by
Jonathan Karsh

Produced by
Jennifer Chaiken	....	producer

Original Music by
B. Quincy Griffin
Hector H. Perez

Cinematography by
Amanda Micheli

Film Editing by
Eli Olson

Sound Department
Craig Burton	....	production sound mixer
Monroe Cummings	....	additional production sound
Andrea S. Gard	....	sound designer
Andrea S. Gard	....	supervising sound editor
Lora Hirschberg	....	sound editor
Lora Hirschberg	....	sound re-recording mixer
Matty Nematollahi	....	additional production sound

Visual Effects by
Aaron Rhodes	....	magic bullet colorist
Matt Silverman	....	main title design

Camera and Electrical Department
Jigar Mehta	....	assistant camera

Editorial Department
Geof Bartz	....	consulting editor
Marc Sadeghi	....	post-production executive

Other crew
Yvette Memory	....	magic bullet producer
Lauryn Siegel	....	production assistant

Thanks
Carol Hyman	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Chaiken Films
• Cinemax
• Home Box Office (HBO)

Distributors

• Home Box Office (HBO) (2003) (USA) (TV)
• Strand Releasing

Special Effects

• Orphanage, The (Magic Bullet services)

Other Companies

• Skywalker Sound  post-production sound services

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Fairfield, California, USA

Company:

Chaiken Films

Trivia:

In the scene where Susan is looking at men on the internet, none of the pictures shown on the film are the actual pictures she was looking at. Instead, for legal purposes, pictures of director Jonathan Karsh's wife's co-workers were inserted.

Beautiful, evocative, and tragic

It helps to have such great screen presences. The mother, Susan is a great center for the story and for the audience's benefit. Perhaps with the existing footage shot over the year-and-a-half, there could be a series made out of this. I would like to see more of some of the children who were not featured very much due to reasonable constraints.

Woven in inspiring, dramatic, comedic and tragic scenes, this is a powerful piece of film. And you can't help coming out of it full of hope, sadness, and understanding. This movie is a celebration of life at its physical roughest and as deep a love as imaginable.