Chris Ventura swings underneath the big, blue Texas sky, in the middle of a playground. He pushes his feet against the woodchips, looking down and tightly grasping the chains of the swing.

In a turquoise polo shirt, the 21-year-old Ventura looks like a child again, amongst the monkey bars and jungle gym. A lost child waiting for someone to find him.

A car pulls up, and Ventura gets up and begins walking toward the parking lot, slowly. He’s nervous. A woman steps out of the car and begins walking toward Ventura.

‘Hi,’ Ventura says, with a bit of a relieved laugh. He’s found her, finally. He’s found his mother – his biological mother.

But before there are any other reactions – tears of joy, a smile, a hug – everything goes black. The words ‘Baby Boy Clemmer’ flash across the screen, then ‘Fall 2008,’ then nothing.

**

This is just one excerpt from Ventura’s documentary, ‘Baby Boy Clemmer,’ in which he filmed the journey it took to finding his birth mother and the rest of the journey that’s yet to come.

‘I’ve always known I was adopted, since I can remember,’ Ventura said. ‘It never really became a realization until I got to college, and I started to think about, ‘You know, I have another family out there, and I want to find them.”

But as a film major, Ventura couldn’t ignore the opportunity to turn this search into a movie. He was assigned to make a 10-minute short film in class, and Ventura took the chance to explore his personal life and what he could do with film.

He didn’t stop there. What Ventura, a senior, had made for the project – footage of himself interviewing his parents about the search, mixed with clips from his childhood and him being interviewed by his girlfriend – wasn’t enough. Ventura, who hadn’t completed his search, wanted to document it to the end. Until he found whom he was looking for.

Born and raised in Holmdel, N.J., Ventura had a regular, normal childhood. As an only child, he was his parents’ pride and joy, their baby boy. They never hid the fact that Chris was not their biological son, and while growing up, Ventura wore his adoption like a top hat – a quirk that made him stand out from his classmates, a conversation point.

‘As a kid, you’re telling your friends ‘Oh I’m adopted’ and no one really knows what it means,’ Ventura said. ‘And you don’t really start to think about what it means. It’s kind of like the same thing as ‘Oh I’m cool, I wear glasses.”

But discovering exactly where and who he came from was never a priority for Ventura growing up. He was content with his life and rarely gave his birth mother a passing thought. Until he arrived at Syracuse University.

Here, Ventura was away from the family he was so familiar with – and began thinking about the family he knew nothing about.

‘In college, you’re not with your parents, you have all this idle time by yourself,’ Ventura said. ‘And I’m not much of a student, so I spent a lot of time thinking more about it.’

**

Ventura wasn’t accustomed to making documentaries. All the previous work he’d done in class and out was narrative film – movie theater fare. But while this initially started out as strictly a film, he recognized this was a chance to connect his passion for film with his growing desire to figure out his roots.

His parents, Vito and Lorraine Ventura, have been very supportive of their son’s quest to find his biological mother, though not without some anxiety.

In the film’s trailer, his mother gives her blessing to Chris, but then it later cuts to an argument in which she feels left out of the search and confronts him.

She said as long as she was involved in the process and Chris let her know what was going on, she was comfortable with it. But she also emphasized that both her and her husband were extremely supportive about the whole process and weren’t going to try to stop him.

‘My initial thoughts when Chris asked me the question – I was very supportive,’ said Vito, Chris’ adoptive father. ‘Initially obviously I was a little hesitant, but I didn’t want to stop him. He has a right to know, and we tried to give him everything he needed.’

And they gave Chris all the help he asked for. Because it was a closed adoption in Texas, normally legal action would have to be taken to find out either of the biological parents.

But once the Venturas gave Chris the adoption documents, Chris discovered the name of his biological mother was merely blacked out with Sharpie – and he could easily decipher it.

With a simple Google search last summer, Ventura was able to locate the exact address of where his mother lived – in Texas. Now it was time to expand his film – to create a climatic ending.

**

Ventura has been interested in film since high school, and he’s been making his own since he was 15 years old. He said he sees nearly everything in life through the lens of a filmmaker. But previously he had never directed anything longer than short films. Even when he arrived at SU at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Ventura only tackled shorter fiction and nonfiction movies.

While ‘Baby Boy Clemmer’ started as another short piece, Ventura knew there was more left to find, more story to tell. And his fellow students and professors in the film department were very open to the idea.

‘The way we approach film in our program, is exploration of the world,’ said Miso Suchy, a film professor who has taught Ventura for three semesters. ‘I think he’s using film to learn about himself.’

Ventura is acting as director, executive producer and editor of the film. He plans to put the film in smaller festivals when it’s completed, and he plans a tentative release date on his birthday, in September.

To help Ventura with the full-length endeavor, he has enlisted his friends and fellow film students to help him with the project.

His friend and film major, Christopher Toppino, is acting as cinematographer and his girlfriend Caitlin Well as a producer.

‘As a friend I thought it was a very powerful idea,’ Well said. ‘But as a film I thought it had a great hook, it’s personal. This is something that can be more than just a project, something he can pursue after graduation.’

With his birth mother’s address in hand, ready to go to Texas without speaking to her beforehand, Ventura sent her a letter, saying he’d like to meet her, but no pressure, and enclosed his phone number. She called back about two weeks later, but Ventura missed the call.

‘There was like this two-week period where I didn’t know what to do – if I should call her back or wait for her to call,’ Ventura said. ‘Then I finally, the day before we were planning leaving for Texas I called her and left her a message, and she called back within two hours.’

So Ventura, Well, Toppino and a cameraman set out for Texas, to film the pivotal playground meeting between Ventura and his birth mother.

‘We were very concerned and wanted to make sure he was safe, we were anxious,’ Vito, Chris’ dad said. ‘We wanted to make sure he didn’t get hurt.’

Some other things came full circle when Ventura met his birth mother. In a rare twist of fate, she was unable to have children after Ventura, so she has two adopted kids of her own.

He also discovered that they’re in the same field – she works in television production at a local news station. But that didn’t necessarily mean she was comfortable on camera.

‘She didn’t want any close ups, because she knew how close ups are used to make people look bad,’ Toppino said. ‘It put me in an awkward position because I wanted to get close up shots to capture emotion, but I didn’t want to completely disrespect her wishes.’

Other moments were not suited for the camera altogether. Toppino said they didn’t end up shooting the final goodbye between Chris and his birth mother, just because it was so emotional. But Ventura still talks to her on the phone (he says the conversations are awkward) and has plans to meet up with her again.

‘I’m not sure if I would have felt comfortable if I were Chris,’ Toppino said. ‘But I’m glad he was comfortable doing it. From a film perspective, we got some great organic material while we were in Texas.’

Separating the personal and professional aspects of the film was difficult for Ventura, as it was both personal journey and something that could launch his filmmaking career.

‘I’m shooting this personal documentary, I’m directing it,’ Ventura said. ‘But I’m in it. It’s not like you’re acting in your own film, you’re the subject matter. And all this stuff is happening to you but at the same time I’m concerned about how it looks on film. It’s been really hard to edit.’

Suchy said he sees editing the documentary as Ventura’s biggest struggle, as he needs to separate the emotional aspects that he experienced and make them into a cohesive film.

‘It needs to tell a good story,’ Suchy said.

In fact, the project is so close to Ventura that he is very protective of who sees the in-progress documentary. His adoptive parents have not seen his birth mother on camera, and he only showed the trailer during the VPA senior film show last Saturday. He wants the whole story to play out beginning to end – meeting his birth mother is no longer the climax. He’s gone too far on this journey. He’s learned too much to just end it now.

Ventura is planning on finding his birth father this summer, and then having his birth parents meet his adoptive parents. Ventura’s adoptive parents are apprehensive about the meeting, but know that it’s what he wants and are willing to do it for him.

‘We’re pretty nervous about it, we’ve heard her voice,’ Vito said. ‘I told Christopher I will do anything for him. But am I looking forward to it? Absolutely not.’

Ventura knows that while this meeting may be uncomfortable for all parties involved, it’s necessary. Not just for him figuring out who he is, but to finish the film. So he can document how he found himself.

‘It’s going to be really awkward when they meet,’ Ventura said. ‘But I think there’s a certain level of tension that needs to be relieved by a physical meeting. They’re basically meeting their enemy. But they’ll realize they’re not trying to take over. It’s just more family.’

eaconnor@syr.edu

Published on May 6, 2008 at 12:00 pm