The Puffin Foundation initially gave a grant to filmmaker Nicole Opper to help her develop her documentary film “OFF & RUNNING” about twenty-year old, Avery Brooks Klein-Cloud a young woman with Afro-American roots who was adopted as an infant by a white Jewish lesbian couple living in Brooklyn, NY. The direction of her life changes (she had been a track star since she was six and had won many national awards) when she decides to seek out her birth parent and rebels against the unique and loving household she was raised in. The film explores the strength of family bonds, race and identity. The film festival showed 11 films and over 2000 seats were filled. The subsequent grant given to the Columbus Jewish Film Festival helped bring Avery Brooks Klein-Cloud to Columbus to discuss the film with the audience.
