We are excited to announce that “Geographies of Kinship” will be screened on Day 1 of the conference, followed by a Q&A session with director Deann Borshay Liem and film protagonists Estelle Cooke-Sampson and Kim Stoker. Watch a trailer of the film here!

About the Film

In this powerful tale about the rise of Korea’s global adoption program, four adult adoptees return to their country of birth and recover the personal histories that were lost when they were adopted. Raised in foreign families, each sets out on a journey to reconnect with their roots, mapping the geographies of kinship that bind them to a homeland they never knew. Along the way there are discoveries and dead ends, as well as mysteries that will never be unraveled.

Ultimately what emerges is a deepened sense of self and belonging, as well as a sense of purpose, as Geographies of Kinship’s four protagonists question the policies and
practices that led South Korea to become the largest “sending country” in the world—
with 200,000 children adopted out to North America, Europe and Australia. Emboldened by their own experiences and what they have learned, these courageous characters become advocates for birth family and adoptee rights, support for single mothers, and historical reckoning.

The broader history of transnational adoption since the Korean War provides the backdrop to our stories. For over half a century, the Korean adoption experience and subsequent Diaspora have transformed not only how adoption is practiced worldwide, but also how kinship, identity and race are perceived and contested. As the forerunner for international adoptions from China, Russia, Guatemala, Ethiopia and other countries, the Korean model challenges us to reflect on universal questions of identity, assimilation, kinship and belonging. Geographies of Kinship explores these themes by listening closely to those who have lived the experience most intimately – adoptees – while relaying a compelling history of epic scope.

About the Director

Deann Borshay Liem has over twenty years experience working in development, production and distribution of independent documentaries. In addition to the new film, Geographies of Kinship, she is Producer, Director, and Writer of the Emmy Award-nominated documentary, First Person Plural and the award-winning films, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee and Memory of Forgotten War (with Ramsay Liem). She served as Executive Producer for Kelly Loves Tony, AKA Don Bonus, On Coal River, Ishi’s Return, and Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story. She also served as Co-Producer for Special Circumstances and Burqa Boxers and as Story Editor for the Peabody-winning film, The Apology.

She is the former director of the Center for Asian American Media where she supervised development, distribution and broadcast of new films for public television. A former Sundance Institute Fellow and recipient of a Rockefeller Film/Video Fellowship, Deann is the 2018 recipient of the Women, Peace and Security Fellowship from the San Francisco Film Society for her work-in-progress film about women peacemakers, Crossings.

About the Film Protagonists 

Film subject Estelle Cooke-Sampson, a retired general and state surgeon for the District of Columbia National Guard, was adopted from a Korean orphanage at age 6 and raised in the U.S. She is one of over 200,000 South Korean children adopted from Korea in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-53) and part of a much smaller pool of mixed-race children whose parentage was a source of stigma in Korea.

 

Film subject Kim Stoker is an adoptee, poet, and activist. She spent 20 years living in South Korea, returning to the U.S. in 2017. During her time in Seoul, she taught at various universities and became a leading activist for adoptee rights.