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This Is the Big Question in Sun Hee Engelstoft's Poignant Heartbreaker

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This Is the Big Question in Sun Hee Engelstoft's Poignant Heartbreaker FORGET ME NOT Director Sun Hee Engelstoft Producer Monica Hellström Co-producer MinChul Kim Executive producer Signe Byrge Sørensen Duration: 83 min Release: 24 March 2019 Language: Korean, Danish and English CONTACT Sales agent AUTLOOKFilmsales [email protected] mobile: +43 676 556 34 88 Publicist Freddy Neumann: [email protected] - M: + 45 20 46 78 46 Producer Monica Hellström: [email protected] - M: +45 26 27 02 75 - www.final-cut.dk SYNOPSIS What makes a mother give away her baby? This is the big question in Sun Hee Engelstoft’s poignant heartbreaker of a film about three Korean women who have become pregnant outside of marriage and are now hiding from the outside world until they give birth. They live in a shelter for unwed mothers on a South Korean island, where beautiful landscapes are in sharp contrast to the fierce dilemma that women go through: should they keep their children or give them up for adoption? Engelstoft has been given unique access to this particular shelter run by the strong-willed Mrs. Im, who fights for the girls’ independence but is up against a social structure and family tradition that leaves women in an impossible situation. Engelstoft’s sensitive portrait brings us close to a forbidden world and through her own experience as a Korean adoptee, she gives a deeply personal and extraordinary insight into a culture in which women can’t choose their own fate. INTENTIONS Forget Me Not follows three unwed mothers staying at a shelter in the countryside on Jeju Island - in South Korea. Each one has to decide if she wants to keep the baby or give it up for adoption. I am one of the 200.000 South Koreans who have been internationally adopted to the Global North since the Korean War. I grew up in the Danish countryside in a loving family, but when I was 20 years old I started to look for my mother on my first trip back to South Korea. I did not find her. There was one thing I could not understand: What circumstances drive a mother to relinquish her child for adoption? The more I thought about it, the less I understood. The question made me return to South Korea again and again, and it has moved me to look for women facing the same dilemmas as my mother. I was driven by a strong wish to understand how decisions about adoption are made. This started a journey that uncovered my own story but most of all it revealed a pattern of how women and their children are treated, when they do not follow rules of marriage, kinship, and sexuality. In 2013 I discovered over 50 shelters for unwed mothers in South Korea. A shelter is a place where women seek refuge from their everyday environment in order to hide their pregnancy until they give birth. In most cases they come without a hope of actually keeping their baby. This is why it was such a breakthrough for me to find Mrs Im – the founder and director of the independent shelter called Aesuhwon. Mrs Im wanted to give the women a chance to stay together with their children – Aesuhwon was completely different and such a contrast to the rest of society. She understood how the women and I – as an adoptee – share an emotional bond due to the circumstances of our lives, although we were strangers. This is also the reason I got accepted into the shelter and why the women shared their worries and dreams with me during the most difficult time in their lives. Making this film has allowed me to understand the contours of my mother’s situation. She was not a single case. International adoption is a consequence of a much larger governmental issue that systemically violates the basic human rights of family preservation. Not out of poverty but because of societal norms that devalue and erase unwed mothers and their children. CREDITLIST Director Sun Hee Engelstoft Producer Monica Hellström Co-producer MinChul Kim Executive producer Signe Byrge Sørensen Lineproducer Maya Sinji Jung Editor Rebekka Lønqvist Sound Designer Peter Albrechtsen Composer Karsten Fundal Cinematography Sun Hee Engelstoft, Linda Wassberg, Camilla Hjelm Knudsen, Maria Von Hausswolff Colourgrader, Anders V. Christensen Graphic Designer Martin Hultman Animation Postproduction // Ja Film Production Manager and Postproducer Maria Kristensen Online and Colourgrade Anders V. Christensen // Kong Gulerod Film VFX Martin Schmidt & Maria Klarlund // Kong Gulerod Film The film is supported by New Danish Screen // The Danish Film Institute - DR & TV2 West Danish Film Fund DMZ, Docs KEB Peace Fund Danish ArtsFoundation Danish Film Directors Politiken-Fonden Korean Film Council The film is developed by Profile Pictures DIRECTOR SUN HEE ENGELSTOFT BIOGRAPHY Sun Hee Engelstoft is a documentary director based in Copenhagen. Born in Busan, South Korea 1982 and adopted to Denmark. Having attended several schools for photography, she was accepted at the prestigious National Film School of Denmark, from which she graduated in 2011. "Forget Me Not” is her debut feature length documentary which has already gained international interest from pitch forums at Sheffield Doc/Fest, IDFA and DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in Korea. Engelstoft has previously made several short docs, edited numerous acclaimed photo books and travelled the world with different documentary projects and widely renowned photo exhibitions. DIRECTOR SUN HEE ENGELSTOFT FILMOGRAPHY The End of All (under development, Danida Foreign Ministry of Denmark, 2016) // Thailand: Why Has Democracy Failed (40 min, The Economist, 2014) // Arrivals & Departure (2x7 min, Magnum Photos & Leica Camera, 2014) // Without Words (28 min, National Film School of Denmark, 2011) // Badawi Boys (20 min, made in collaboration with International Media Support, 2010) // On the balcony (20 min, National Film School of Denmark, 2009) // Before i go (16 min, National Film School of Denmark, 2008) // Close (12 min, debut short, 2007) // PRODUCER MONICA HELLSTROM Monica Hellstrom̈ has been a producer at Final Cut for Real since 2010. She previously worked at Upfront Films and The Danish Film Institute's Film Workshop. She graduated from EAVE Producer Workshop in 2010, holds an MA in film from the University of Copenhagen (DK) and a BA in film from the University of Bedfordshire (UK). She produced: The Distant Barking of Dogs (2017) by Simon Lereng Wilmont (Oscar shortlisted 2019, winner of Best Film, First Appearance IDFA 2017), The Dvor Massacre (2015), The Fencing Champion (2014), Chikara –The Sumo Wrestler’s Son (2013) by Simon Lereng Wilmont, (both premiered at IDFA, won the Jury Award for Medium length Doc and Best Short Children Doc Award at Al Jazeera Film Festival) and MoonRider (2012) by Daniel Dencik (Premiered at Karlovy Vary). She co-produced (selected): The Nile Hilton Incident by Tarik Salah (won Grand Jury prize: World Cinema Dramatic at Sundance Film Festival 2017), Concerning Violence by Goran̈ Olson (Nominated at Sundance Film Festival, Won the Cinema Fairbindet Prize at Berlinale 2014), Varicella by Victor Kossakovsky (2015) RUTH by Hanna Heilborn (2015), Dancing for You by Erlend E. Mo (2015). FINAL CUT FOR REAL PRODUCTION COMPANY Final Cut for Real is a double Oscar nominated and award-winning company dedicated to high- end creative documentaries and fiction films for the international market. The core staff consists of four producers Signe Byrge Sørensen, Anne Köhncke, Monica Hellström, Heidi Christensen and postproducer Maria Kristensen. Together they cover a wide range of development and production expertise and work with younger talent as well as established filmmakers to create a productive mixture of experience and new approaches to filmmaking. Recent productions include “The Distant Barking of Dogs” (Simon Lereng Wilmont 2017), ”The Look of Silence” (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014), “Pervert Park” (Frida & Lasse 2015) “The Act of Killing” (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012), “Chikara - The Sumo Wrestler’s Son” & ”The Fencing Champion” (Simon Lereng Wilmont 2013), “The Human Scale” (Andreas Dalsgaard 2012), “TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard” (Simon Klose 2013), “The Kid and the Clown” (Ida Grøn 2011). .
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