Finding Christa

The documentary Finding Christa (1991) represents a particular view about motherhood, where Camille investigates not only the perception of her own rapprochement to the daughter she gave for adoption, 20 years before, but also her self notion about that decision. This movie explores the feelings and the repercussions around that reunion with her daughter, and the tension that can be created by external expectations and their own feelings: the gap between public guilt and the non acceptance of the personal one.

Duration: 55
Production year: 1991
Country: United States of America
Subtitles: EN, Subtitles: PT

Sundance Film Festival 1992 - Winner of the Jury Prize for Best Documentary
Toronto Film Festival 1991 - Official Selection
Rotterdam Film Festival 1992 - Official Selection
Festival of New Directors / New Films in 1992

Camille Billops & James Hatch

Camille Billops was born on August 12th, 1933, in Los Angeles, California. She was an archivist, sculptor, painter, filmmaker and professor with a predominantly international career and works exhibited all around the world. Billops directed several films such as Suzzane, Suzzane (1982), Older Women and Love (1987) and Finding Christa (1991). All of her movies were made through her production company Mom and Pops Productions which she found with her husband James Hatch. In 1992 her film Finding Christa was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

As a professor she taught at Rutgers University and the City University of New York. With the sponsoring of the United States Information Services she was also a teacher of art classes in India during the late 1960s. Camille died in 2019, in New York at the age of 85. Her legacy lives on through her foundation, the Hatch-Billops Collection.

Original title: Finding Christa

Camille Billops & James Hatch

Credits