Melissa Fay Greene review

"One Family: An Ethiopian Adoption captures the essence of older-child inter-country adoption. Where before there were separate parts, a new family now stands. The filmmakers have a light touch, yet their story is true and moving."

-Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey To Rescue Africa's Children

Adoptive Families magazine review

This documentary, about a Vermont family who adopts a 10-year-old girl, can be seen as a sweet story, an intimate portrait of Claudia, Rob, Eli, and, finally, Meskerem. But One Family: An Ethiopian Adoption (Jim Ritvo and Dave Raizman) has broader implications, too. People are beginning to speak about openness in international adoption, but almost always in adversarial terms--baby stealing, baby selling. So, the scenes in which Meskerem's birth family--her adoring grandmother, big brothers, and aunts--entrust her to her new American parents are awe-inspiring, and a lesson for us all. This, you realize, is how it should be. Split by race, distance, poverty, disease, and grief, two families are connected by a delicate hinge, Meskerem, and they become one.