Adoptee Film Festival

The Adoptee Film Fest aims to further establish the need for Adoptee-centered adoption narratives by Adoptees in film, media and entertainment. After receiving 32 submissions spanning 7 countries, we are thrilled to invite you to join us for our inaugural screening night that will showcase 10 short films by adoptee filmmakers that speak to the adoptee experience in some way!

Film Lineup
‘Tierra (Land)’ by Jenifer de la Rosa

Amaranta is a 12-year-old adopted girl who has grown up in Spain and wants to know more about her Colombian origins. One summer day she decides to secretly investigate her past. Her findings, the internet and her friend Maria will change her perception of herself forever.

‘CHOPSTICK’ by Leah Xiuzhen Rathe

A chopstick, adopted from one country and raised in one filled with forks, goes on a journey of self discovery and identity.

‘Rethinking Adoption: In our own words’ by Lynelle Long.

This is a short film on the lived experience of intercountry transracial adoptees covering what we want people to know about the complexities of our journey.

‘Hana Sasaki’s Tail’ by Kevin Berlandi

Adapted from the award winning book of short stories "Three Scenarios in which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail" by Kelly Luce. This short film delves into the idea of identity as we follow Hana Sasaki on her thirtieth birthday as she receives a present that she could have never imagined.

‘ANY SIGN AT ALL’ by Faryl Amadeus

Clutching at straws and running on fumes, a desperate young woman’s indecision about the future of her unborn child has her looking for signs from the universe. Stranded at a crossroads, will the future finally reveal its plan?

‘Big Happiness’ by Dahee Kim

In 1988 co-director, Da Hee Kim, was adopted from South Korea as a baby, and was raised by a white family in the suburbs of Minnesota. Big Happiness centers around two dinner conversations, one with Da Hee's adoptive parents in Minnesota, and the other with Hojung Audenaerde, another Korean adoptee in Seoul. Big Happiness is a meditation on transnational adoption, identity, and colorblindness growing up in a transracial family.

‘Dear Mother’ by Kayla Tange

Like thousands of Korean orphans since the 1950s, Kayla Tange was adopted by a Japanese American family and brought to the United States as an infant in 1982. She now lives in Los Angeles, where she works as an exotic dancer and as a performance artist. In 2011, Kayla made arrangements through a social worker to meet her birthmother. After traveling to Korea, she was devastated to learn that her birthmother had changed her mind and refused to meet with her. Kayla returned to the US with even more questions and an even heavier heart than before. Kayla hopes this visual letter filmed over the course of a year will help bring her some sort of peace if not the chance to finally meet the mother she’s never known.

‘Reunion’ by Cameron Howell

A young man begins to panic as he grapples with a decision that will change his life.

‘Abby’ by Fanny Lord-Bourcier

Following an exchange of text messages with her mother about her newly adopted dog Abby, a young woman sees her experience as a transracial adoptee reflected in this adoption.

‘Stranger’s Reunion’ by Elizabeth Sargent

Mira, a Korean-American adoptee travels to Hong Kong to meet her birth mother for the first time. Impulsively, she invites Yura to visit her in her hotel suite the day before their official meeting in the hope that they’ll find a connection ‘before a translator gets in the way’. However, with only a basic understanding of each other’s languages and, to varying degrees, their own guilt and prejudices, misunderstandings threaten their tenuous attempts at connection, until an emotional breakthrough leads them to hope there is resolution — and a future — ahead for them both.

The Adoptee Film Festival is proud to be 100% Adoptee operated and funded.

Host or Publisher Caveat