Documentary Film. It is a story of finding the truth of international adoption hidden by the activities of Banat, which is a group of middle-aged Korean women who help international adoptees find biological families.
1. Planning Intent
About 200,000 Korean children adopted to the U.S. and Europe 30 to 40 years ago. All of them have pictures with English names, dates of birth, and K-number. The "K-number" is a mark placed by individual adoption agencies to classify children when they are sent overseas for adoption.
In 2022, a number of adoptees in their 30s and 40s will return to Korea. Rather than being angry with the parents who abandoned him, there is a big reason why they want to understand the feelings of the parents as they get married and have children. The reason why I want to match the pieces of life adds to this. But there are obstacles to putting the puzzle pieces together.
An institution that does not give information, a law that cannot give the names of parents for personal protection,
First of all, the institution that created a bunch of 'orphan families' to send overseas adoptions and the government that approved them.
The patterns of chaos woven together by obstacles keep adopters away from their past. Moreover, this situation is dismissed as a problem that an individual who is an unusual adoptee must solve on his or her own. The current reality is that we have no choice but to hear a comfortable answer from a government official such as "Why did you come back like this when I sent you to live well?" However, this is not a problem at the individual level, a problem that has not been solved at any time, and it is not a problem that has already been completed and remains in the past. Still, children of single mothers go abroad for adoption, and the media argue over whether or not baby boxes should be removed. We are still the only OECD country to be adopted and the world's third-largest. Is the reason why this phenomenon is possible simply because of differences in individual levels of perception? Is it simply a matter of social class? When the soil of society surrounding individuals is corrupt, individuals are likely to make blurred judgments and decisions.
Now, we should stop shortening the story of overseas adoptees with individual sad but beautiful stories or grotesque fates. Overseas adoption is an event that can only be approved simultaneously in the mutual relationship between individuals and groups, groups and countries, and countries. Therefore, when efforts are made to understand and observe the laws, cultures, and civilizations of both the sending country (Korea) and the receiving country (the United States and Europe), the individual's life can be properly understood.
Our future is only possible when we reveal the truth of the past and correct the present. Adoption agencies and the state, which have been engaged in illegal adoption industries since 1950, should make a proper apology to adult adoptees and biological families. As long as we reduce the problem of overseas adoption to an individual's problem, we forget that our today is always collateral for someone's suffering and unhappiness. I think it is the process of "being a true Korean," to face our today properly.
In the 2020s, when K-pop and K-content are regarded as symbols of national wealth, K-Number, which we should not forget, is returning.
2. Logline
It is a story of finding the truth of international adoption hidden by zooming in on the activities of Baenat, a group of middle-aged Korean women who help overseas adopters find biological families
3. Work information
K-Number: Returning Kids/ 100 Minutes (planned)/ 4K HD/ Stereo/ Documentary
4. Synopsis
Children who were adopted overseas 30 to 40 years ago and left Korea are now adults in their 30s and 40s and visit Korea, an "unfamiliar hometown." They try to find their roots, but most of them fail. This is because the past records he brought are usually forged, and adoption agencies do not give information. To make matters worse, the moment they find out that even their Korean name is not their real name, they are in shock and confusion. At this time, there are Koreans who help them. "A group to help overseas adopters—Baenat." Baenat, a small group of eight middle-aged women in their 40s and 70s, travels throughout Korea online and offline with overseas adopters. In the process of finding biological parents, Baenat grows as he experiences the reality of the "adoption industry" illegally conducted in the past and meets various cases of adoptees. If only three years ago, I thought helping overseas adoptees successfully reunite their parents was all and rewarding, now I see a different world. Kim Yu-kyung, a former social journalist and Baenat leader who led the search for parents, and Lee Kyung-eun, a legal scholar and fellow of Baenat, a detective of the long-term missing child investigation team and Park Dong-hwan, a secret agent of Baenat, are the Koreans' "Becoming Koreans" process.
5. Director's comment
There are many documentaries and dramatic films about Korean adoptees. Overseas adoptees who live a painful life due to their strange fate, overseas adoptees who promote their national prestige as Olympic athletes, or overseas adoptees who have emerged as successful political, legal, and medical professions abroad. However, by reducing the lives of overseas adopters to the myths of poor other or successful individuals, these works not only maintain a safe distance from the audience, but also hide the complex level of national and social levels inherent in overseas adoption issues. Of course, there are works that tell the story of the adoptee from a different perspective. The works that belong to this area mainly take the form of autobiographical documentaries in which overseas adopters themselves become directors and portray their lives in a dense manner (e.g., <Fogget Me Nat> (2021), <In the matter of Cha Jung-hee> (2010), <A Brand New Life> (2009), etc.). However, in this case as well, the story of an overseas adopter does not become a matter of his or her life for the audience. The audience only sees this as a special story of special people.
But is overseas adoption just an episode of a special individual? The state has authorized private institutions to freely conduct "proxy adoption" that can "order and deliver" children as if they were products. The agency has abandoned its irresponsibility in relation to overseas adoption and has not given up its children and children's life records, calling them its own. Hiding all this truth, how long will the adoptee repeat the "mystery of reuniting my parents"?
What is the shape of the family that we draw?