ORIGIN STORY

Audience Award, 2018 CAAMFest

All superheroes have origin stories. This is Kulap’s. One night when she was 14 years-old, a blow-up at home led to the revelation that the man she thought was her biological father in fact was not. There was another man, somebody from her mother’s past, who once helped raise Kulap but who then vanished. Coping with that revelation was one thing. Coming to grips with why everyone – especially her mother – kept it from her was just as torturous. To disentangle the secrets, as well as the emotional paralysis that ensued for over a decade between mother and daughter, Kulap embarks on an investigatory quest for answers.

An actor, director, and podcaster, Kulap is an able storyteller and a natural screen presence, her face never able to hide the elation and befuddlement that comes with discovering family she never knew existed and meeting a father who shares her face and perhaps her exhilaration for reunion as well. Kulap’s river of recovery, which takes her through Minnesota and to the Mekong, traces a history that is deeply personal but that also spotlights the unique reality of refugee marriage and the relationship between the 2nd generation, their grief, and that shattering reality.

–Brian Hu

Co-Presented by: Lao Community Cultural Center