Korean adoptee writes a reflective letter to his grandmother while confronting the memories and loss buried beneath the words “you’re so lucky.”

WAS I THE ONE WORTH SAVING?

That question lived inside me for decades. I was nine years old when I boarded a plane at Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, South Korea. I didn't understand what was happening. I only knew that everything familiar was disappearing: my language, my neighborhood, the grandmother who raised me when my own parents couldn't.

You're so Lucky is the film I've spent my life building toward. It's a cinematic short documentary told through a reflective letter to my grandmother, the woman who was my first home, woven between reenactments set at Gimpo Airport in 1988, present-day interviews, and extraordinary archival footage of the moment I thought I'd never see again.

For many adoptees, "you're so lucky" is the sentence that ends every conversation before it begins. It forecloses grief. It demands gratitude. It tells us the story of our own lives before we've had the chance to tell it ourselves.

This film asks what gets buried beneath that phrase. And it refuses to look away.

THE BOY I WAS. THE LIFE I LEFT

This was the adoption photo that was circulated in the adoption catalog throughout the world. Yes, there was an adoption catalog.

I was raised in Dongducheon, South Korea by my grandmother, Kim Yong-Suk. She was not obligated to raise me, but she did, with cracked hands and quiet love, walking miles to work before I woke up so there would be food waiting for me. She was my entire world.

My father, a man I barely knew, eventually made a decision that would define everything: I was sent to an orphanage at age eight, and within days, placed in an adoption catalog circulated across the world. That photo, a small boy standing against a wall like a mugshot, became the image an American family in Wisconsin saw and chose.

I arrived at O’Hare International Airport in 1988 without English, without context, and without the chance to say goodbye properly.

It would be 20 years before I saw my grandmother again. A Korean national television show made that reunion possible. Years later, when I became a father and watched my own eight-year-old son, I finally could no longer outrun the question: what happened to the boy I was?

WHAT THE FILM IS

A still from 'We’re Coming to Meet You' (2005), the Korean national TV show that reunited me with my grandmother.

You're so Lucky moves between three worlds: a reenactment of the day I left Korea in 1988, set in the corridors of Gimpo International Airport; intimate present-day interviews with my grandmother, my adoptive family, my childhood neighbors in Dongducheon, and Dr. Oh Myo Kim, an adoption researcher and counseling psychologist at Boston College; and archival footage from our 2005 television reunion.

The film's spine is a letter. Not a narration. A letter. Written by a man to the grandmother who raised him. Carrying everything he couldn't say in Korean. Everything that adoption was supposed to make easier to forget.

A mood board guiding the look and feel of our airport narrative scene.

Visually, the film draws from a cinematic language of memory: warm analog textures against cold institutional spaces, silence used as intentionally as sound, the body of a nine-year-old boy navigating an airport the size of his entire world.

Interviews have been completed. We are now raising the funds to shoot the narrative reenactment sequences that will complete this film.

WHY THIS FILM, WHY NOW

South Korea released the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report 2025 addressing the human rights violation in the intercountry adoption. International adoptees are organizing globally to demand accountability from the agencies and governments that facilitated their adoptions. Documentaries, memoirs, and investigative journalism are finally centering the adoptee voice, not the adoptive parent’s narrative of rescue.

There are an estimated 200,000 Korean international adoptees worldwide. For decades, the dominant story told about us has been one of salvation: "you were so lucky to be chosen." The psychological reality is far more complicated, and far less convenient.

This film is part of that wider reckoning. It doesn’t speak for all adoptees. But it speaks from one, with the specificity and honesty that creates real recognition.

We are participating in the AAPI Renaissance Rally on Seed&Spark, a national campaign that directly invests in Asian and Asian American storytelling. This film belongs in that conversation. Korean adoptees are part of the AAPI diaspora, and our stories have been underrepresented even within AAPI spaces. That changes now.

This short film is also the foundation for a larger feature film, Voice of Waters, exploring adoption, survival, and belonging across generations. The momentum we build here directly shapes what comes next.

HOW YOUR SUPPORT BRINGS THIS FILM TO LIFE

A behind-the-scenes moment from my interview with my grandma.

Your contributions go directly toward completing You're so Lucky, specifically the final production shoot of our narrative reenactment sequences set at Gimpo International Airport (Seoul, 1988) and O’Hare International Airport (Chicago, 1988).

All interviews have been completed. This $10,000+ covers everything needed to bring these scenes to life: location, cast, crew, camera, equipment, and production design, shot with the cinematic quality this story deserves.

Every pledge counts. Seed&Spark’s model requires us to reach our goal to collect any funds, so every dollar, and every follower, moves us closer to finishing this film.

BE A PART OF THIS

Follow the campaign on Seed&Spark. It’s free and it directly impacts our standing in the AAPI Renaissance Rally. One of the benchmarks for finalist consideration is reaching 350+ followers. Your follow is a measurable vote for this story.

Contribute during the Rally window (March 30 – April 29). Your contribution, at any level, goes directly toward completing this film with the care and craft it deserves.

Share this campaign. If you know Korean adoptees, adoptive families, Korean American communities, mental health advocates, AAPI storytelling supporters, or anyone who believes people deserve to tell their own stories, send this their way.

Your support means everything. This film exists because of people willing to stand behind stories that don't always get told. Thank you.

— Jonathan Moon, Director

youresoluckyfilm.com