Between Goodbyes

Between Goodbyes, dir. Jota Mun, 2024, USA/South Korea, 96 min., in English, and in Korean and Dutch with English subtitles 💖
Thursday, June 19, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater

Between Goodbyes

Mieke is Korean by birth, but she was sent as an infant to be adopted in the Netherlands. She grew up speaking Dutch (and English, of course), without a word of Korean. When Mieke was 19, her birth parents found her and got in touch.

Okguyn, the mother, was forced to put Mieke up for adoption, because she already had three daughters, and the family couldn’t afford a fourth, especially when South Korea was pushing people to have fewer children to contain the population explosion. More than 200,000 Korean children were adopted overseas between 1950 and 2020.

Mieke has grown up to realize that she is a lesbian, and she is planning to marry Marit, a Dutch woman. She is pleased to meet her birth family and find connections with her parents and the siblings she never knew she had, but at the same time, she feels like an outsider in Korea, doubly so because of social attitudes about lesbians. Mieke and Okgyun both struggle to bridge the gap, with Okgyun wanting to hold Mieke close and make up for decades of lost time, while Mieke needs her space to be herself.

It’s an interesting and powerful emotional journey, set against the backdrop of some fairly recent history that is not well known in the West. Must see.

• IMDb • trailer • official website: BetweenGoodbyes.com • Coming to PBS, and available to stream starting December 8, 2025 •