[This screening will be followed by a filmmaker Q&A.]
BETWEEN GOODBYES adds new dimensions to the typical adoption story by focusing equally on an original (birth) mother and an adoptee. After over 10 years of searching, Okgyun was able to locate her daughter, Mieke, a Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands. Instead of that being the end of their story, it was merely the beginning.
The film delves into their fraught reunion with a long-term perspective. Through non-linear storytelling, Mieke’s 2021 visit with Okgyun in Seoul is interwoven with flashbacks of each woman’s past. Beautifully conceived and profoundly multilayered, BETWEEN GOODBYES depicts one family’s separation, reunion, and journey towards reconnection.