Between Goodbyes

Emerging Filmmaker Award, 2024 DMZ International Doc Film Festival
Official Selection, 2024 Chicago International Film Festival

Born in South Korea as Miok, Mieke was raised in the Netherlands by her Dutch single adoptive mother, a continent away from a family she never had the chance to know. Mieke’s birth parents didn’t have the resources to take on another child, so they, like 180,000 other Korean parents, were nudged by the South Korean government’s population policies to put their child up for international adoption.

In the years since, Mieke has overcome loss, found community in church, and discovered queer love, all while her birth parents have dreamed, from an ocean away, about the woman she may have become. So one Christmas, they send their Dutch child a Christmas card to say hello, and to apologize, beginning a decades-long process of reunion.

BETWEEN GOODBYES follows Mieke on a trip to South Korea to celebrate her marriage and reflect on parents and siblings who have, with each goodbye, etched an indelible hole in her heart. Director and fellow Korean adoptee Jota Mun reveals the difficult but transformative process of reunification, giving hope to those on both sides of the sea, as they discover their own identities between self and family.

–Jeremy Aranda

Supported by the Association of Korean Adoptees San Diego (AKASD)