Made In Korea: A One Way Ticket Seoul-Amsterdam?
credits:
Director: In-Soo RadstakeProducer: San Fu Maltha
Writer: In-Soo Radstake
North American Premiere
The Netherlands 2006 | 73 mins | DigiBeta | English,Dutch,Korean w/E.S.
IN PERSON (at select screenings): In-Soo Radstake
Documentary filmmaker In-Soo Radstake is just like any average Dutchman. He feels close to his parents, likes meat and potatoes and cheers on his favorite sports team. A Korean adoptee, he doesn’t feel conflicted about his identity or have any deep stirrings to find his Korean roots. But when he embarks on an innocent journey to find the eight other Korean adoptees who flew on the same plane as him from Korea to Holland over twenty years ago, a domino effect of events will alter his life. He first meets Ungila, and is taken by her knowledge of Korean culture and her personal story of being reunited with her birthmother. She quickly becomes In-Soo’s girlfriend, and is instrumental in opening up a world of wounded, pent-up emotions. With her love and support, In-Soo travels back to Korea for the first time and visits his old orphanage. Soon a long-repressed need to find his birthmother bubbles to the surface, and In-Soo is on a desperate quest to reconcile a part of himself that he didn’t even know existed.
A favorite at the Pusan Film Festival, this personal documentary is an intimate look into a Korean adoptees’ journey to find himself, and a romantic query on how much common ground is needed for lovers to fully connect with one another. Far more light-hearted than the typical “finding yourself” work, the film even finds In-Soo appearing on a tearjerker TV show that features weeping reunions. Like our hapless adoptee, you won’t know whether to laugh or cry.
—Lynne Connor
