308 Alexandra Mann
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/308
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Who among us doesn't love a good movie? And how many times have you been watching a film and a jump scare? Some terrible adoptee trope comes outta nowhere. Today's guest, Alexandra Mann had that happen one too many times.
And what grew out of that all too common adoptee misrepresentation in the media was the Adoptee Film Fest, which is now in its second year, spotlighting adoptee filmmakers telling adoptee stories. Alexandra shares about her personal story as a domestic [00:01:00] transracial adoptee from Hong Kong, and how therapy preserved her relationship with her adoptive parents after a giant secret came to light.
We do have a mention of suicidal ideation in this conversation, so please listen with care. Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.
We wrap up with some recommended resources. A chance to meet in person in New York City in November, 2025, and as always links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Alexandra Mann. Hello, Alexandra.
Alexandra Mann: This is crazy Haley.
Haley Radke: She's speechless.
Alexandra Mann: Hi. Hi Haley. I am speechless. I am speechless. I am so [00:02:00] happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. I can't, this is my first time talking to you, meeting you. So the fact that you just introduced me, excuse me, everyone for a moment I am freaking out. But. Just because Adoptees On was the first adoptee podcast I ever listened to in a desperate time of need. So this is just really full circle for me and I really can't believe it.
Haley Radke: Oh, thank you. I'm so glad the show could be there for you in a critical time. That's amazing.
Alexandra Mann: Yeah, no, it really was my adoptee therapist. This was before I had adoptee community. I was out in Hong Kong doing a birth search for looking for my birth mother.
And yeah, my therapist was like you should listen to some podcasts and gave me three. She recommended yours being one of them and yeah I binge listened to all the ones where you interviewed [00:03:00] transracial adoptees, just 'cause that's where my pain was at the time, thanks for being that incredible resource.
It honestly was really fundamental for me and understanding that I'm not alone, which seems, obviously very funny now where half of my community are adoptees. But yeah, it was very isolating, as a lot of us know and your podcast brought me just, a little taste of what that community could look like and that I was very much not alone.
Haley Radke: Oh,
Alexandra Mann: This is very special.
Haley Radke: Thank you. Thanks for sharing that with me, and thank you for being willing to share your story because someone else is going to listen to your episode, will be their first episode, and they'll know they're not alone. So that's pretty cool. Let's start there. Do you wanna share some of your story with us?
Alexandra Mann: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a domestic transracial adoptee from Hong Kong, so basically let's break that down 'cause I do think it's rare. At least in my [00:04:00] community here in New York I don't know a single other domestic transracial adoptee from Asia. So essentially, my parents, my mom's Texan, my dad's from England.
They were expats. They lived out in Hong Kong for 35 years and during that time, they adopted my sister and I was adopted at five months old and grew up in Hong Kong. I will say that. Before then. I've since learned because I received a letter from my birth mother or my parents. My adopted parents were given a letter from my birth mother when they adopted me. I didn't find this out until I was 26.
Haley Radke: How did you find the letter?
Alexandra Mann: My dad and I got into a big fight about BLM that was going on at the time. He for some reason felt like it was relevant to tell me that now. So yeah, a lot of us as transracial adoptees know that it could be hard, [00:05:00] to have these kind of conversations with our parents, and I definitely experienced that for five years, and this was the peak of it at the end of those five years. And yeah he told, even though, in my mind those are very separate conversations and I need to caveat this with by saying that period in life almost broke my adoptee family apart, but adopted family.
Sorry. Having come out of it and come through it, having worked through it with them now, we all got adoptee therapists. My sister, me, my parents, and three, four years later now, we are so much stronger because of it. And I don't need it to be, I'm not trying to be like, oh, this is a story where we were able to work it out 'cause I know that's not the case with everyone, but we would not be as close for sure if we hadn't had that period. Yeah, so TLDR, me and my dad, we were able to work it out. Honestly, we were really close before that, so it was heartbreaking. [00:06:00] Absolutely. I felt a lot of betrayal. He knows all this. I think it's very okay to share.
Haley Radke: Can I ask you, looking back on it, when do you wish they had given you that letter?
Alexandra Mann: I wish that it had been, part of the conversation around when they were first starting to tell me that I was adopted to normalize it, to normalize my birth mother in my life. I think a lot of people's default is to think, oh, once I turn 18, even my birth mother in the letter, the first line is, you are now 18 and I am blah, blah, blah.
But no I honestly wish it had. I wish it had been in my life and part of those conversations, why does it need to be a secret at all? It makes you feel like there needs to be shame around this secret letter. When I wish I had known the information in it all along, my parents hadn't read it.
It was in Chinese [00:07:00] before they had given it to me, but it answered a lot of the questions I had always wondered about my adoption and my past. Yeah, what I think if it had been done that way, some of the anger and the feeling of betrayal wouldn't have been there.
Haley Radke: So in recent years, you got this and what did your mother tell you?
Alexandra Mann: My birth mother told me that she was 15 when she had me, I, that was the only piece of information that I actually knew that my parents had told me about her, I had always been told that the reason why you were relinquished was because you're birth mother. Both my sister and I separate birth mothers, but we had the same situation when they were teenagers.
And teenagers shouldn't raise children. And I believe this so much to a point that I remember when I as a teenager. There was someone in [00:08:00] high school, a couple years older than me and my friends who got pregnant, and I she kept the baby. And I just remember thinking, this is morally wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
If she really loved the kid or herself, she would relinquish them. And obviously looking back I'm like, whoa, what the actual hell? But I don't believe that now, obviously, but it was so ingrained in, into me that this was an act of love and that because it happened to me and look at all the amazing things that I was adopted into and the love I had, that this was the right course of actions for women in that situation, which is really funny thinking about looking back and sad, but yeah it, she detailed her situation. Her and my birth father had been in love since they were 11, and because of the laws in Hong Kong, she didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy. She did share [00:09:00] that she had, sorry, trigger warning. Suicidal ideation and that she really loved me. She told me what my name meant. She told me what time I was born, so now I know I'm a Libra rising. That's so sick.
Haley Radke: No, but a lot of people don't have that. It was, and especially transracial adoptees where they get like the birth window. I think I was born in this month long period.
Alexandra Mann: CoStar had me down as sag before this, so that didn't feel right. But yeah, apparently my, the name, she gave me Lee, Yin Ning, she says that it means growing up safe and sound, which is obviously very emotional. But yeah, she says she loves me so much. This is the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life. And she hopes that she'll be able to see me. Please don't forget about her, she'll always be here. And you can tell that a 15-year-old wrote this [00:10:00] on stationary because the stationary, the piece of paper, it's written on has cartoon monkeys and hearts. And at the top it says, come find me if you ever have a problem. I'm sorry, but what? That's the only English on the whole letter from that stationary. So yeah, I was absolutely a mess when I received this letter bawling, so it was quite hard because I was told about the letter, on FaceTime. I live in New York. My parents are living in Hong Kong at the time, and it was during 2020. So at the end of 2020 I learn about this and then I have to quarantine in Hong Kong in a hotel by myself for two weeks before I can leave and see my mom and dad. And so there's it was a lot of anticipation.
I found out in October, late October, and I didn't receive it until I was released from quarantine over Christmas time. So yeah, it was a lot I [00:11:00] got released at midnight from the hotel and drove home with my parents who I hadn't been really speaking to that much, since they had told me. So it was all very crazy.
But yeah, absolute mess bawling and it's so funny because when I was reading this, it was such a mix of emotions where I was in a place where. I was feeling really betrayed and hurt by my mom and dad, but at the same time reading this letter, really yearning for their comfort and their cuddles during it. So it's literal, absolute dissonance during that period with them. It just, yeah, it felt mind rocking. I feel like my friend Lindsay, she always tells people that when you find out new information about yourself as an adoptee, it feels like you're Peter Pan and the, Peter Pan has a shadow self that's separate. When you find new information [00:12:00] out, you have to it takes time, but you have they eventually will sew them together, when you, it really feels outta body and who me? You're talking about me. It's hard to put that together.
Haley Radke: Okay. Are you comfortable talking about how you all got your own therapists? What did that look like? And did you have any sessions where you talked together just for folk? Lots of people are dealing with hard things in relationship with their adoptive parents and often it just goes to estrangement and we don't talk about the, what could you do in between to help bridge some of that?
Alexandra Mann: Oh my gosh. First off, yeah, it, you're right. It is a very emotional topic. I am sorry, I'm just looking at your face right now. And yeah it's really tough and I so empathize and I'm there with folks who have this experience. I'm not sharing this to [00:13:00] be like, this is what you should do.
I really don't. I was in survival mode. I'm looking back and I'm grateful things turned out the way they did, but they very much might have not turned out this way. So when I went to college, that's what I was a social sciences major and so I learned about social politics for the first time.
That which not something we talked about in Hong Kong at all. And I never had questioned my transracial reality. I very much thought I was white, I knew I wasn't. So many of us transracial adoptee think in our head sometimes we're white. And I just really rejected a lot of my Asianness, my Chineseness, and just why I didn't want the white people to find out my secret that I was actually Chinese.
So by the time I get to college, my mind's blasted. I go to one of the most liberal universities in Canada, UBC is a public university on the West coast. So my, i'm [00:14:00] learning so much. I become what I think a lot of people in Hong Kong at least when I would return, called me in their heads I was a social justice warrior to them because, why isn't anyone talking about any of the stuff?
And I detailed this to say that I had been an already, a five year fight almost with my mom and dad about race and that my sister and I being two transracial Chinese adoptees are Chinese, are Asian, are people of color. And what that meant, they were very much initially racist.
First there was not conversations they had ever really had and they struggled to believe that this was our reality and I felt really whitewashed by a lot of my community at the time who, I'd heard growing up , we don't even see you as Chinese. We don't even see you as Asian. You're normal. Because for context, while I [00:15:00] grew up in Hong Kong, we were in the expat community in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a British colony until ninety six. I was born in 95. So even today there's colonial. Colonial divide between the more affluent white expats, mostly white majority whites and local Hong Kong Chinese people.
It's so separate, or at least it was my reality. My parents lived there for 35 years and didn't have a single friend of color really. So that's what the environment I was having those conversations in. So it was already charged. So by the time I found out about the letter, it was the last straw where I was so mad.
So I was at a point where I just, I was so emotional, so angry. I felt like I was the one who was trying to. They felt maybe I was trying to tear the family apart. I felt I was actually trying to keep the family together by saying I need, we were trying to [00:16:00] have conversations around this.
Obviously my parents felt bleep awful. They knew they had bleep up immediately, right? But also were maybe trying to convey why they had chosen to do what they did, even though they knew they had bleep up. I need you to see me as. Chinese as Asian, I need to see me and, sorry. And that that wasn't happening.
There was just I felt really unheard. I'd send them articles and things. I really would appreciate if they would listen to and read just to understand where I was coming from, more just my life a bit more and they wouldn't do it, we just have very vast different perspectives about what I was trying to do.
And so I was at a point where this is too hard for me. I felt so safe once with you, but I feel so unsafe. I feel so triggered. I had stopped going to family friend functions at that time because all white communities, and I didn't even feel that [00:17:00] safety from my own family, immediate family.
I dunno. It just all felt so hard. So yeah, around the time I got the letter, I honestly need to walk away or I feel a desire to, and this is why I say I don't recommend people doing this. I was just at a point where I just felt like I didn't have any more options and I had wanted them to see a therapist or an talk to an adoptee therapist, which is literally an adult adoptee, right?
Because they were all coming from me. In their eyes, maybe their young child who had been radicalized by UBC, I'm kidding. But I just felt like anything I would say, wasn't really getting through or taken seriously. So I just wanted them to speak to someone else, which wasn't, they didn't wanna do, didn't wanna do it was just awkward.
It was just silence would happen or when any of the stuff was brought up and the fear, I guess that's common in adopted parents, [00:18:00] I guess in on their end was really triggered, right? They were like, we can't lose our child. We don't wanna lose our child. And so they agreed to start seeing an adoptee therapist.
They don't, yeah, so they saw them for maybe a year on and off. My sister also is in a reunion now, so that was also going on, I guess within those couple years. So a helpful resource for all and it changed everything because it went from, I guess them not trying to, but it felt to me it was very dismissive of what I was trying to talk to them about all those years, which I will be honest ended up in screaming matches most of the time 'cause it was such an emotional thing for me to talk about.
And they felt, I guess looking back a lot of shame around their ability as a parent, which is not what I was trying to get at all, right? But that's what we were hearing from each other. [00:19:00] And so them being able to speak to a therapist allowed them to open up their minds. And I had been the educator in my family for five, six years at that point.
And so it also took that weight off my shoulders. But yeah, they definitely saw where I was coming from a bit more and allowed them to learn how to create that safe space for me. And now I feel very safe with them. In past where maybe something, a racist comment might have happened, at a family friend thing or at a family thing.
I, I trust, especially when mom I really feel like she'd pick it up and I wouldn't have to say this person just said this. And then her being like what do you want me to do about it? Or I don't think that's bad, or say something dismissive. So it's looking back it always is funny to reminisce on and wow, we've had such a 180 as a family that I'm really grateful. I think for [00:20:00] context as well. Another layer I will add is that I had I did birth search, but the person who may be my birth mother, replied to the search and asked, please don't reach out to this number again. And so I, after all this felt that rejection from my birth mother.
So I can see that perhaps the adoptee in me is just not to be "grateful" for my adoptive parents person or adoptee. That's absolutely, not what I'm trying to perpetuate here [gratitude]. Okay, that's not in my control. That's probably, that's not gonna happen now. My parents are aging the relationships are very important to me and I'm grateful we've been able to rebuild a hundred percent. They're truly some of my favorite people. They are my favorite people in the world, and I'm so glad that we've been able to come out of this stronger 'cause I know that doesn't happen for everyone.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing the nitty gritty of it all, sincerely. It's it'll be really helpful for a lot of people to hear, and I [00:21:00] think a lot of people don't understand the onus of educating adoptive parents is put on the adopted person, and especially when we're immersed in this pro adoption culture where the adoptee tropes are aplenty.
And I know you have big feelings about that. So let's go there. Can you take me to, or do you remember, so you're unpacking this adoption stuff. You must be looking at media things in a little bit of a different light. What do you remember? Either TV movies, like seeing some adoptee representation and you're like, this is so off base so wrong. What are the ones that come to mind right away?
Alexandra Mann: So I think in the period of the letter when I was home doing my birth search, when I was going through all this with my family, it's a four month period where I was living in Hong Kong after Christmas [00:22:00] that year because I didn't wanna go back to New York in case my birth mother reached out.
So I was right in it. I didn't have adoptee community at the time. I was living at home with my parents and my sister during COVID. I was watching tv I remember I had started this show called The Fosters, and then it was also mid during, This Is Us still airing and both shows, and I was watching that on the same time, both shows had birth mothers return to the adoptee's life. And I think they were both really negatively portrayed, right? I think in the Fosters there are some drugs involved, someone was looking for money Classic. And then and This Is Us, the birth mothers also a drug addict who, Randall was better off without .
And at the time I don't know, I just, I was finding it really triggering to watch, but also recognizing, oh, this is [00:23:00] the trope, this is the common trope that I feel I have been seeing all my life, and just paying attention to it for the first time and then this is one of the classic tropes about adoption that is always portrayed and started picking up on more and more. The centering of white adoptive parents most of the time in stories. Think of, for example, Blindside being the most famous one, and I just, I didn't have creativity time. I wanted mirroring. That's why your podcast is so powerful, because I, it's okay, I'm not seeing it. I don't wanna put words into my mouth, but maybe I had that conversation with my therapist. I'm so triggered by this media, I'm consuming. She was like, hey, stop consuming that. Maybe just go to or turn to adoptee created sources. Here are some podcasts. I might be pulling that outta my ass, but wouldn't that be a lovely story? So yeah, I was noticing all this. I was crying in my journal, writing all of it [00:24:00] down because I was not only feeling misunderstood by the stories I was seeing on screen, I was feeling misunderstood by everyone in my life at that point of time.
Even the lovely people who were trying to understand and et cetera, it just felt so isolating and I was just hyper triggered all the time and crying. Crying, writing my journal. Lowest I've ever felt, honestly, in my whole life. So alone. And I just had a moment where I was like, whoa, maybe survival. But my brain just realized at that point, my North Star has to be championing adoptee centered, adoptee created adoption narratives because this is work. I had a job in New York before this where I was working, so the social impact department at Vice Media Group, RIP. And I was helping to [00:25:00] identify underrepresented narratives to weave into our content.
So I knew there's somewhat of a thing in the industry and I wasn't in touch with my adoptee identity at the time. I had not come into consciousness when I had that job, so I didn't think to champion our stories, which is so funny looking back now. But yeah, that's where it all kicked off.
Haley Radke: And so
Alexandra Mann: Pain. And need
Haley Radke: Pain. So your intense pain bore out this idea for the Adoptee Film Fest, which I attended virtually last year and was just,
Alexandra Mann: thank you.
Haley Radke: Oh, it just fed my soul, i've been podcasting for a long time. I do my very best to highlight adoptees you should know and highlight their work. And we've had plenty of filmmakers on and it's hard for them to get their stuff out there. And if you're, especially if you're [00:26:00] independent, it's really tough to get eyeballs on these amazing stories and very important stories. And so I was thrilled. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy that this is in the world, truly. And yeah. So you made a thing and it's now in its second year, was very successful. Tell us about coming up with the idea and tell us the story.
Alexandra Mann: Yeah, absolutely. So Haley, the Film Fest account probably started following you just because you were you and Adoptees On was in my world during that time where I literally
Haley Radke: I gotta pause you here. Okay. Because people. I just want you all to know, I didn't know that you listened to this show ever until you filled up my guest form a few weeks ago, just so you know. Okay. So I did not have Alex on to gas me up. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.
Alexandra Mann: Oh my God. No. I'm doing this [00:27:00] completely outta my own passion. I love that though. I this, the film festival is version three, version two of what I had initially wanted to do when I had that Pink Screens north star moment. I knew I wanted to champion, adoptee storytellers, but it wasn't manifested in the form of the film festival as we know it today. It was just, I just wanted to get adoptees in media and entertainment together to see how can we help champion adoptee, storytellers, adoptee creators, adoptee, filmmakers, writers, who's in the room with us here? Who's in the industry? And. That project quickly failed, but that's probably the account that followed you.
It was the Filmfest Instagram account, used to be called the Adopting Media Collective. Very short-lived. But it's funny, I did meet a couple [00:28:00] people on the selection committee back in those days. We had one meeting and then I was air quotes, rejected from my birth mother and completely abandoned the project because I was abandoned.
So that was a thing that all happened during these four months in Hong Kong. And so I came back to New York. I was very much unemployed, I'd been part of a reorg cut at my company, and so I was unemployed for 10 months, and so that was the goal. I needed to find a full-time job, but I couldn't let go of this being a thing that I wanted to do.
I will say that after the hearing back from my birth mother, I didn't want anything to do with the project or if I work on that, I just wanna not. Nope. Later I was just putting everything away into a box. But the thing that helped me get out of that [00:29:00] was my roommate Lindsay, she's my best friend.
She was my first adult adoptee friend, and we met each other online on Roomie, which is an app like Tinder for roommates, and she dragged me to my first adoptee event. But also known as annual picnic, and I did not wanna go. I was like, Ugh, eye roll. I do not wanna engage right now. But it felt like I was on drugs when I was there in a good way, because I didn't know, I just had such a visceral reaction to being in community for the first time.
It felt like I was high in a good way because I was like, whoa, didn't know I needed this. Euphoric. But to go back to your original question, Haley, two and a half years down the line from this failed Adoptee Media Collective project, I go to my friend's film festival. They started the first [00:30:00] trans and gender queer film festival and they were in their third year at the time.
So I went and bleep this means so much to this community. You could feel it in the room as an ally of this community. I felt moved and inspired by this event. It really was one of those really special events, super well done where it's just, oh wow. You walk away from it, I couldn't shut up about it and whoa, it would be so cool to do this for adoptees. So that's the TLDR. Sorry, very long-winded way. I'd say I was inspired by my friends film festival, but I didn't know anything about film. And the industry. So I actually took two years to, educate myself, work on some film sets during some periods of unemployment and yeah, started it a couple years after that through the long process.
There were two years where I was telling people I was gonna do it and then [00:31:00] wasn't. Didn't I wasn't doing it, but here we are. Yay. We did it. Thank God.
Haley Radke: I think people don't realize how much work it is to organize something this large. It gets massive. It takes so many people. I used to work for a huge conference company. We did one conference a year and it was an enormous amount of work. And and I know it's not . It's volunteer, right? So thank you for taking up that weight and bringing it to life. It's just incredible. I'm so excited because I get to come in person this year and yay. So stoked.
Alexandra Mann: I'm so excited,
Haley Radke: so stoked. So we'll get to meet.
Alexandra Mann: Thank you for making the effort.
Haley Radke: I promise we will get to meet for sure.
Alexandra Mann: Wonderful.
Haley Radke: I know you've seen so many films now, so this year you have all the features. Last year you started with shorts, and so how many can you make a estimate if you don't know [00:32:00] exactly how many shorts, adoptee, shorts have you seen and features have you seen altogether from all the submissions for a couple years?
Alexandra Mann: Yeah, so last year we had 33 short submissions. This year we had 18, it's 51.
Haley Radke: We're good at math. Okay. 51 shorts. And how many features?
Alexandra Mann: Features? We got eight submissions this year and it was the first time we did it, so I've only seen those eight. Yeah.
Haley Radke: And have you personally watched?
Alexandra Mann: Yes, I've seen everyone and then everyone on our committee whose committees who are assigned to either shorts or features. They've also watched every single film.
Haley Radke: That's a lot of screen time. Yes.
Alexandra Mann: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay. So in viewing all of these things, what are you hoping that people will create next? What's, what are the gaps? What's missing? What do you want to see?
Alexandra Mann: Oh my God. Love that. [00:33:00] Love that so much. I think so in terms of gaps. Something that I get really excited about is when someone submits or tells me that they're making a thriller or a comedy, we try in terms of our programming, one of our goals is to write, show people and our community that we're not a monolith. Right? And just further that. I think that it would be really cool for our community to start telling our stories in different genres just because we're not a monolith and so are, I guess the formats of our stories. Don't get me wrong, I love a good doc. I love a good drama, but I'm hoping that with the existence of the song festival and now filmmakers having hopefully this forum to communicate to each other, there's, exploration allowed in how we're telling our stories because they're so multifaceted. There are so many different ways to tell them. So that really excites [00:34:00] me. I also get excited when people are unafraid to bear or display angry adoptees. I think even in our submissions, in our films, we're not seeing a lot of that, which is cool, but. I'm just thinking back to when I was, for example, in my angry, my angriest air quotes adoptee space where even in adoptee spaces, I felt misunderstood and I just haven't really seen anything that adequately conveys how I was. I truly always encouraged and love to see adoptees being angry because it feels even within our community there's still some shame, a lot of shame around that. But I want us to be free. I just want us to be free.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Alexandra Mann: To be,
Haley Radke: I think, I feel like what I've seen in a lot of the documentaries is it's real, but it's not quite all the way there. Even when speaking with some of my friends who've made docs [00:35:00] that have, made the rounds already and it's they still wanted it to be somewhat palatable to the general public.
Alexandra Mann: Yeah.
Haley Radke: So yes, you're complicating the narrative a little bit for people, but they felt like they couldn't go all the way there yet. And that's so sad, to even sugarcoat your own story just so someone else will listen to it. We shouldn't have to do that.
Alexandra Mann: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think we're self-censoring like that all the time. All the time. And the last film festival, the first one, when we were creating this project, first and foremost, the primary target audience for it was adoptees 'cause I was thinking of people like me who maybe hadn't seen that mirroring or felt that mirroring on screen, and not that I don't think we're ever gonna stray from that being for adoptees, being our primary target audience. I don't know. I hope that in [00:36:00] building, continuing to build this community of people who are hungry to see this mirroring, to see these stories that we're able to help create this safe space where filmmakers don't feel the need to self-censor. It's tough though, right? Because obviously if you put so much time and effort into a project and obviously want it to go beyond the Adoptee Film Festival. Yeah. There's still so much. I can understand that self-censoring wholeheartedly. And I hope long term, the film festival hopes to be a vehicle to be able to engage with the industry about these conversations that need to be had and help create some kind of path or understanding around, telling these stories through the adoptee lens in a authentic way where there allows more room to not [00:37:00] self-censor. And I think you're seeing that in different identity facets in Hollywood. It's a very weird time right now, but we can all see hopefully, right? How much more freedom Asians in Hollywood have been able to have in telling their stories. It's a long journey.
We're tiny in comparison to the entire Asian community in Hollywood, for example. And people still don't understand why adoptee advocacy is a thing, right? We still have to justify that in itself. So it's gonna be a long battle, but ultimately hope that we can do work in the future that allows for more freedom in us telling our stories in ways where we don't have to censor.
Haley Radke: Do you wanna make a film, Alexandra?
Alexandra Mann: Oh my God, Haley. I took a film class where we [00:38:00] had to write, direct and produce our own short film. And this was a year or two before I started the film festival. And I wrote. A script about my birth mother and kind of that period of me searching and had some flashbacks to when she was 15 relinquishing me, super short film.
I only was able to shoot the first opening scene because it was just too fresh for me then. I was still very much mid healing. Not that I'm not always, but it was so raw at the time, and there was definitely a sense in me that just wanted to run away from that project just like I did with the first adoptee media project I did.
And I also think that filmmaking takes a lot of patience. And can be, an up to five plus year project. [00:39:00] And I'm very impatient. Patience is not my middle name, so my background's in events. So the film festival felt very natural way for me to be able to still contribute to this goal and this desire of mine and this cause without stifling myself in the long run on that because this is a safe way for me to do it. This feels a productive way for me to contribute. Yes, maybe there's a bit of a barrier, but because I've had that firsthand experience of how tough it was for me to even think of following through on straight, finishing that short film I just have also the utmost respect for anyone who is able to do, especially people like Kristal who have full on feature length films. That's insane to me when I can even finish a five minute film. So I think this is great because I think one of my skills has always been championing other people I really believe in and giving pep [00:40:00] talk, just really putting people in the spotlight. Yes and no. It's not where I'm putting my time and effort into right now. At least. Never say never, but I also now think we're surrounded by so many amazing filmmakers who are so wonderful and talented that they're where my energy is going right now.
Haley Radke: Okay. So if they're listening and they wanna tell Alex's story, there's something there that they can come to you with. Okay, good. Okay, let's talk our recommend resources. And you mentioned Kristal. So our friend Kristal Parke has the documentary Because She's Adopted and you selected it as one of the features for the Adoptee Film Fest. But I really wanna encourage people come in person if you can. So you are having, first time ever, it's gonna be screening in New York and LA. This time it's November 2025.
Alexandra Mann: The feature film, sorry, only [00:41:00] in New York.
Haley Radke: Features in New York, but the shorts are gonna be New York and LA Yes. Okay. So I'm gonna come to New York and I'm gonna see the shorts. I think I'm gonna miss Kristal by a couple days, unfortunately. I know. Shocker.
Alexandra Mann: Really no way.
Haley Radke: I, you know what I, this is not a secret. I still have children at home.
Alexandra Mann: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Who need my attention way more than you'd think. And so I'm just thrilled I can even come midweek. So I feel like I'm already doing what I can.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. A hundred percent. And so happy. You're coming. Thank you.
Haley Radke: It takes me a whole day to get from Edmonton to New York, and people also know I don't like to change planes, and I'm gonna have to do that too, so it's all a big deal. Anyway, it's not about me.
Alexandra Mann: Thank you for making the effort, Haley.
Haley Radke: I'm so thrilled to be coming and so I hope to meet lots of you. I hope you're all gonna [00:42:00] come. You're gonna support Alexandra's Film Fest, and for those of you who you can't make it to New York, can't make it to LA there will be streaming online again. Yes. So folks can partake. And I know you wanna talk about that too 'cause what do you wanna recommend to us today?
Alexandra Mann: I would love to recommend, and I don't mean this to be a promotional plug or anything. Haley asked before this, recommend a singular resource that you think it'd be really helpful to people, and I just genuinely believe in that, the value and the power of it, because I know how much it helped me.
But the 2024 Adoptee Film Fest, short selections are still available to watch and screen online until November 20th of this year, 2025. And when I first, and I say this to say, when I first watched all of the films in the order, we knew [00:43:00] we were gonna screen them in last year. I just cried like a baby because it was everything I wish I had. In my time of going through all the stuff, all the feelings of isolation and being misunderstood with my own adoptee experience and coming into consciousness. So I just also really stand by it as a powerful and informative and helpful resource to adoptees because , you get to see yourself in these films in a lot of different ways, even if they don't pertain exactly to what you're experiencing. It's really, the filmmakers just are all very incredible and are able to really convey and get so much across. On our experience.
Haley Radke: I love the selections from last year. It's very inexpensive. I think it was, it's $10 I think to stream American and I told you this [00:44:00] off air, but Sullivan Summer and I, we talked through it all on Patreon last year and we went through each film and we critiqued, talk about what we loved
Alexandra Mann: because I didn't know either of you.
Haley Radke: So people might not know this about us Sullivan and I we're besties. They probably know that but we love movies, especially horror movies. And so we do these far away, quote unquote movie dates where we'll both go and see a horror movie on the same day and talk about it. We watched the film fest and we yeah talked about it. I love that there's different stories represented. There's a fiction doc cartoon, there's animated, and you're so thoughtful about inclusivity and making sure everything's captioned. You had things in other languages. It was just so well done. I am, I'm so thrilled for year two. Congratulations on your success, and we hope we are gonna sell out every single screening for you.
[00:45:00] And yeah, we're championing you over here so we can people find. Both the 2024 shorts, if they still wanna catch up, if they haven't seen those. And then where are people gonna be able to hear about how to get tickets, how to come all the info for Adoptee Film Fest for 2025?
Alexandra Mann: People can find the link to stream our 2024 shorts reel, either on our website, which is adopteefilmfest.com or on our Instagram @adopteefilmfest in our link in bio there.
And in terms of tickets. We're still finalizing some things with our venues who help us with our tickets, but we're gonna start rolling them out the goal is anyway, at the beginning of October, that first week of October. So yeah, very exciting. We're gonna be in LA for our short screenings for the first time this [00:46:00] year, and that's really exciting. We also. As you have shared, we'll be doing feature films for the first time in New York City, so it's very exciting year. We're quadrupling our programming lots more to see.
Haley Radke: Amazing. And I'm gonna put my plug in for Kristal Parke's feature screening, Because She's Adopted. It's amazing. I loved it.
It's very good. And she screened it here in my city and so I got to see it in person with her and yeah. Yeah, it was wonderful. So way to go Kristal. Congrats and congrats to you. Well done. Well done my new friend.
Alexandra Mann: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Haley Radke: And where can folks connect with you online?
Alexandra Mann: My Instagram is private, but if you wanna connect and be friends my LinkedIn is linkedin.com/in/mann1. And yeah, right now at least I'm the one running the film festival account on Instagram poorly. I will say it's not my expertise, [00:47:00] so sorry, but I'm there. I'm there too.
Haley Radke: Okay, great. Come on to Instagram people. Wonderful. What a delight to get to know you today. Thank you so much for sharing with us. It's just been a real pleasure.
Alexandra Mann: Thank you.
Haley Radke: Okay, friend. Here's your chance. If you wanted to hang out in New York City, please come hang out with me. I am gonna attend the Adoptee Film Fest. My plan is to be there on Thursday, November 6th, 2025, and our good friend Sullivan Summer here at Adoptees On most folks will know her from her multiple appearances on our Adoptees On Patreon. She's also been on the main feed show. You can scroll back and listen to her episode. We'll link it in the show notes. Sullivan is my, one of my [00:48:00] best friends and she is going to be having a reading and chapbook launch party on November 8th, 2025, which I'm so excited to be attending and cheering her on with that.
And we just have such an exciting week planned so you have time. We wanted to make sure you had this episode early so you can make your travel plans and come hang out with us. We would love to get to meet you in person and support Alexandra and support Sullivan in their adoptee endeavors. So please come to New York. We would love to have you if you're not able to make sure you stream the film fest. Or go in person on another night in LA or in New York, because the more we support events like this, the more they are able to be successful and grow and get adoptee voices [00:49:00] out into the broader culture. So please support their initiatives.
Thank you so much for listening to adoptee voices and prioritizing them. And I really appreciate you taking the time to spend with us in your earbuds. Thanks for listening. Let's talk again very soon.
