The F Word: A Foster-to-Adopt Story
Oakland, California | Series
Comedy, Documentary
Season 1 revealed the story of one queer couple adopting from foster care in Oakland, CA. Season 2 continues their story while amplifying other voices in the foster care world: birth families, foster youth, adoptees, P.O.C. perspectives, and social entrepreneurs working to make things better.
The F Word: A Foster-to-Adopt Story
Oakland, California | Series
Comedy, Documentary
1 Campaigns | California, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $21,879 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
279 supporters | followers
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Season 1 revealed the story of one queer couple adopting from foster care in Oakland, CA. Season 2 continues their story while amplifying other voices in the foster care world: birth families, foster youth, adoptees, P.O.C. perspectives, and social entrepreneurs working to make things better.
In Partnership With
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
We need your help to create Season Two of The F Word!
The F Word is a heartfelt, emotional and often funny docu-series my wife and I created about our process adopting a child from foster care. By the end of Season One (spoiler alert!) our dream came true and we took home a foster son. We are totally in love with him, but the story's not over.
Digging into the foster system -- whose stories get told? The foster care system is full of kids who urgently need homes, like our son J, but fostering is a complex process. Many birth parents who’ve had kids removed from their homes are working to reunify and bring them home. The basic tenet of foster care, and the core complication, is that it is meant to be a temporary solution, not an adoption plan.
Season Two aims to address this complication head on. Up until this point, The F Word has really only represented our voice - the voice of the prospective foster-to-adopt parent - and there are many other voices in this story that demand to be heard. For example, what are the stories of the birth/first parents? What about foster parents who aim to provide temporary care rather than foster-to-adopt? Most importantly, where is the adoptee voice and the foster youth voice in all of this?
Season Two of The F Word intends to lay bare the tension that arises when we acknowledge our personal stake in this complex, emotional process while exploring the system’s goal of reunification and the importance of family preservation and forgiveness.
We're ready to amplify these voices and we need your help to do it. Your tax-deductible pledge will pay for film equipment and will also pay our hardworking crew who are all committed to bringing these perspectives to life in Season Two. We have a lot of great incentives related to adoption, queer families, and filmmaking in general -- check them out and help us make this project a reality!
SELECT PERKS:
$35 PERSONALIZED BOBBLE HEAD IMAGE
$50 CHILDREN'S BOOK
$100 MOVIE PACKAGE
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Fiscal Sponsorship
Costs $1,000
BAVC is our fiscal sponsor which means you get a tax break when contributing to our campaign.
Cinematographer
Costs $3,000
We have 12 shoots to complete for season two with Mario and Tijana, our incredible cinematographers.
Sound Design/Mix
Costs $2,500
You only recognize BAD sound. Good sound is seamless. We work with Berkeley Sound Artists: the best!
Composer
Costs $2,500
We love our composer, Diana Salier, and want to be able to bring her back for Season 2!
Editor, equipment
Costs $10,000
Editing is where it all comes together, and we're lucky to work with the talented Laura Green!
Share this update!
About This Team
Director/Producer:
Nicole Opper is an Emmy®-nominated filmmaker who directed and produced the feature documentary Off and Running, an Audience Favorite at Tribeca and winner of ten international awards including Best Documentary at Outfest and Best Documentary Screenplay at Silverdocs. The film was nationally broadcast on P.O.V. in 2010. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to direct Visitor’s Day which is supported by New York State Council on the Arts, Chicken & Egg Pictures and The Independent Television Service. She’s also produced films for The Discovery Channel and Here TV, and was selected for Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film”. Nicole has taught filmmaking at Stanford University and San Francisco State University, among other schools.
Camera:
Mario Furloni is an award-winning Brazilian filmmaker and cinematographer based in Oakland, CA. His latest project, the short documentary GUT HACK (co-directed with Kate McLean), premiered in competition at SXSW 2017 and on season 6 of the NYT OpDocs series. He is the cinematographer and co-producer of the critically-acclaimed documentary THE RETURN which chronicles the end of California’s three strikes law through the eyes of former lifers. THE RETURN won the Audience Award at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, and the Golden Gate Award at the 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival. It was the series opening film shown on PBS POV this year, and was nominated for a Peabody Award and an Emmy. Mario has directed a number of documentary and fiction projects, including POT COUNTRY and the Brazilian short fiction film SOMEONE IS HAPPY SOMEWHERE, official selection for San Francisco International Film Festival, and the Havana International Film Festival, and the feature documentary FIRST FRIDAY, which broadcast nationally on PBS' AfroPop. Mario shot the short documentary “After My Garden Grows,” by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Megan Mylan, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2014. He was awarded a Kenneth Ranin Foundation screenwriting grant for the feature fiction project FREELAND, currently in development (previous winners include “Fruitvale Station” and “Short Term 12”) and a residency with the San Francisco Film Society. He has a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Editor:
Laura Green is a documentary director and editor who hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has directed five short documentaries, Lady Razorbacks, Neve & Sons, DISASTER (a personal geography), Installation, and Everybody’s Business. They have played at numerous festivals, including Palm Springs Shortfest, Aspen Shortsfest, Sarasota Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, Outfest, and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. She most recently edited True Son, a feature length documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in April. She is also a lecturer at Stanford University and the Art Institute of California – San Francisco.
Animator:
Sam Berliner is a Bay Area-based filmmaker and animator best known for his engaging and accessible films about gender non-conformity. His award winning short films, Dating Sucks: A Genderqueer Misadventure, Genderbusters and Perception have screened all over the world. When not actively making films, Sam is the festival director of Translations: the Seattle Transgender Film Festival. He also gives presentations about gender at organizations and schools. He freelances as a camera assistant, still photographer, animator, producer and editor. Sam graduated in 2005 from Smith College with a BA in Film & Theatre and earned an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University in 2013.
Campaign Manager:
Nicole Miyahara is an ethnographic documentary filmmaker from the Bay Area. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from the University of Southern California. She is turning her thesis film THE MAKING OF A KING into a feature film. Her short film TO SIT WITH HER premiered at the Los Angeles Asian American Film Festival. She has managed several documentary crowdfunding campaigns and currently is a social media consultant for a production company in Los Angeles.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
We need your help to create Season Two of The F Word!
The F Word is a heartfelt, emotional and often funny docu-series my wife and I created about our process adopting a child from foster care. By the end of Season One (spoiler alert!) our dream came true and we took home a foster son. We are totally in love with him, but the story's not over.
Digging into the foster system -- whose stories get told? The foster care system is full of kids who urgently need homes, like our son J, but fostering is a complex process. Many birth parents who’ve had kids removed from their homes are working to reunify and bring them home. The basic tenet of foster care, and the core complication, is that it is meant to be a temporary solution, not an adoption plan.
Season Two aims to address this complication head on. Up until this point, The F Word has really only represented our voice - the voice of the prospective foster-to-adopt parent - and there are many other voices in this story that demand to be heard. For example, what are the stories of the birth/first parents? What about foster parents who aim to provide temporary care rather than foster-to-adopt? Most importantly, where is the adoptee voice and the foster youth voice in all of this?
Season Two of The F Word intends to lay bare the tension that arises when we acknowledge our personal stake in this complex, emotional process while exploring the system’s goal of reunification and the importance of family preservation and forgiveness.
We're ready to amplify these voices and we need your help to do it. Your tax-deductible pledge will pay for film equipment and will also pay our hardworking crew who are all committed to bringing these perspectives to life in Season Two. We have a lot of great incentives related to adoption, queer families, and filmmaking in general -- check them out and help us make this project a reality!
SELECT PERKS:
$35 PERSONALIZED BOBBLE HEAD IMAGE
$50 CHILDREN'S BOOK
$100 MOVIE PACKAGE
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Fiscal Sponsorship
Costs $1,000
BAVC is our fiscal sponsor which means you get a tax break when contributing to our campaign.
Cinematographer
Costs $3,000
We have 12 shoots to complete for season two with Mario and Tijana, our incredible cinematographers.
Sound Design/Mix
Costs $2,500
You only recognize BAD sound. Good sound is seamless. We work with Berkeley Sound Artists: the best!
Composer
Costs $2,500
We love our composer, Diana Salier, and want to be able to bring her back for Season 2!
Editor, equipment
Costs $10,000
Editing is where it all comes together, and we're lucky to work with the talented Laura Green!
Share this update!
About This Team
Director/Producer:
Nicole Opper is an Emmy®-nominated filmmaker who directed and produced the feature documentary Off and Running, an Audience Favorite at Tribeca and winner of ten international awards including Best Documentary at Outfest and Best Documentary Screenplay at Silverdocs. The film was nationally broadcast on P.O.V. in 2010. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to direct Visitor’s Day which is supported by New York State Council on the Arts, Chicken & Egg Pictures and The Independent Television Service. She’s also produced films for The Discovery Channel and Here TV, and was selected for Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film”. Nicole has taught filmmaking at Stanford University and San Francisco State University, among other schools.
Camera:
Mario Furloni is an award-winning Brazilian filmmaker and cinematographer based in Oakland, CA. His latest project, the short documentary GUT HACK (co-directed with Kate McLean), premiered in competition at SXSW 2017 and on season 6 of the NYT OpDocs series. He is the cinematographer and co-producer of the critically-acclaimed documentary THE RETURN which chronicles the end of California’s three strikes law through the eyes of former lifers. THE RETURN won the Audience Award at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, and the Golden Gate Award at the 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival. It was the series opening film shown on PBS POV this year, and was nominated for a Peabody Award and an Emmy. Mario has directed a number of documentary and fiction projects, including POT COUNTRY and the Brazilian short fiction film SOMEONE IS HAPPY SOMEWHERE, official selection for San Francisco International Film Festival, and the Havana International Film Festival, and the feature documentary FIRST FRIDAY, which broadcast nationally on PBS' AfroPop. Mario shot the short documentary “After My Garden Grows,” by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Megan Mylan, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2014. He was awarded a Kenneth Ranin Foundation screenwriting grant for the feature fiction project FREELAND, currently in development (previous winners include “Fruitvale Station” and “Short Term 12”) and a residency with the San Francisco Film Society. He has a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Editor:
Laura Green is a documentary director and editor who hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has directed five short documentaries, Lady Razorbacks, Neve & Sons, DISASTER (a personal geography), Installation, and Everybody’s Business. They have played at numerous festivals, including Palm Springs Shortfest, Aspen Shortsfest, Sarasota Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, Outfest, and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. She most recently edited True Son, a feature length documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in April. She is also a lecturer at Stanford University and the Art Institute of California – San Francisco.
Animator:
Sam Berliner is a Bay Area-based filmmaker and animator best known for his engaging and accessible films about gender non-conformity. His award winning short films, Dating Sucks: A Genderqueer Misadventure, Genderbusters and Perception have screened all over the world. When not actively making films, Sam is the festival director of Translations: the Seattle Transgender Film Festival. He also gives presentations about gender at organizations and schools. He freelances as a camera assistant, still photographer, animator, producer and editor. Sam graduated in 2005 from Smith College with a BA in Film & Theatre and earned an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University in 2013.
Campaign Manager:
Nicole Miyahara is an ethnographic documentary filmmaker from the Bay Area. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from the University of Southern California. She is turning her thesis film THE MAKING OF A KING into a feature film. Her short film TO SIT WITH HER premiered at the Los Angeles Asian American Film Festival. She has managed several documentary crowdfunding campaigns and currently is a social media consultant for a production company in Los Angeles.