Between Goodbyes

Documentary screening followed by a panel discussion

• Date:      September 21, 2024
• Time:      1:30 PM
• Location: Kim Deok-yun Chapel, Han Kyung-jik Memorial Hall, Soongsil University (Seoul, South Korea)

About the film

• Producer:             Zoe Sua Cho (editor and producer of "House of Hummingbird") 
• Director/Producer: Jota Mun
• Featuring              Mieke Murkes, an adoptee, and her family 

Between Goodbyes at DMZ International Documentary Film Festival 

Screening Schedule 

• Friday, September 27, 12 PM, Megabox Kintex
• Sunday, September 29, 8 PM, Lotte Cinema Juyeop

Between Goodbyes is a two-hour cinematic journey that commands every minute, taking audiences through moments of tears, laughter, and a poignant resonance that echoes long after the credits roll. Hailed as one of the most thoughtfully crafted works on adoption, this film is set to screen at next week’s DMZ International Documentary Film Festival.

The film's narrative centers on three figures: 

A mother, weighed down by societal judgment and economic hardship, persuaded by an adoption agency’s promise that sending her youngest daughter abroad offers a “better life.”

An adoption agency, taking in a baby with living parents, rebranding her as an “orphan,” erasing her origins to fit the demands of an international adoption market.

A Korean-born daughter, sent as an infant to the Netherlands—far from the family and country she once belonged to, without her will, without a choice.

Decades later, mother and daughter meet again, but instead of a joyous reunion, they confront the scars left by time and separation. Silent bystanders in the system remain unaccountable, while mother and daughter clash, wound each other, and come to the painful understanding that their suffering was not of their own making. Their journey toward healing and understanding unfolds slowly, as captured by a line in the film:  

“In our hurting, we did not notice that we were stolen from each other.”

This story is neither a tragedy nor a comedy. Instead, it seeks to illuminate a poignant truth: the reality of intercountry adoption, where hundreds of thousands of infants were flown away under the guise of “saving children.” 

▶ Watch Trailer 

(Click the image)

▶ Panel Discussion

At the floor discussion, Unwed Mothers Initiative for Archiving and Advocacy (UMI4AA) provided a critique of the adoption narrative that often centers on adoptive parents, sidelining the voices of birth parents and adoptees. We expressed a clear hope that more films like this documentary will emerge to shed light on the often-overlooked experiences of birth parents who relinquish their children and adoptees who grow up separated from their families and origins against their will. Such films, we argued, are crucial for fostering public dialogue on the ethics of adoption. We also raised significant concerns about the Protected Birth Bill, which, since its enactment on July 19, 2024, appears to further encourage the separation of birth families in South Korea.