I was recently blown away by Return to Seoul, which I saw with a good adoptee friend of mine. If you can get to see it, I highly recommend it.

Very excitingly, there’s a screening and a Q&A with Laure Badufle at the ICA in London on 8th July 2023 - French/Korean adoptee Laure inspired the character of Freddie. If you can make the date, I would urge you to go along as there will be lots of other adoptees there.

The Q&A with Laure will be hosted by Debbie Iromlou from the Adult Adoptee Movement, a UK-based group of inclusive adult adoptees. Formed by using lived experience to challenge attitudes on historic adoption and to change the narrative of adoption. Debbie is also a transracial adoptee who has written a guest blog for How To Be Adopted and runs a group in London called TAAN - transracial adult adoptee network. To find out more, you can email adoptionsupportduty@islington.gov.uk

But, back to this amazing film which really blew me away. So often we see chocolate-box endings to films about adoptees and adoption reunion - I’m thinking about the film Lion, for example. With Return to Seoul, I do feel there are many realistic moments that adoptees can relate to. Of course, I’m not a transracial adoptee so there are many additional layers there too. If you can’t make this special screening and Q&A, look out for the film when it comes to TV/streaming services.

More info about the film:

Official trailer for Return to Seoul

*** Opportunity for adoptees to watch the film for free from 7 July 2023 (credit card details needed but then you cancel your free trial after you have watched the film) ***

Davy Chou’s RETURN TO SEOUL, which premiered in Cannes 2022’s Un Certain Regard, is an unpredictable and refreshingly authentic story of a young woman’s search for identity. Park Ji-Min delivers a revelatory performance as Freddie, an adoptee who was born in South Korea and raised in France. Freddie is magnetic, spirited and hard to pin down; never in one place, or with one person, for long enough to get attached. At 25 years old, she visits Seoul for the first time since her adoption, in an attempt to reconnect with her biological parents and the culture she had to leave behind.