Still Present Pasts

SooJin Pate

Film History

"The majority of Korean adoptees have little or no memory of their past lives in Korea. . . . As a result, in the search for their Korean past, these Korean adoptee filmmakers create innovative strategies for recuperating (from) and reconnecting with their lost memories of Korea."

- SooJin Pate

In the past decade, over 25 documentary and experimental films have been created by Korean adoptees in the U.S. This “wave” of cultural production can be attributed to the fact that the first and second wave of Koreans who were adopted by American couples during the 60s and 70s have come of age and are now speaking out about their experience through the medium of film.

SooJin is shaping a film history and theory presentation entitled Contested Terrains: Memory and History in Korean Adoptee Documentaries. She will bring attention to this emerging body of work from Korean adoptee media artists such as Deanne Borshay Liem’s First Person Plural, Nathan Adolfson’s Passing Through, Helen Lee’s Subrosaliving in half tones.