Approved for Adoption

Winner
Audience Award
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Winner
UNICEF Award
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Nominee
Cristal
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Watching the animated memoir Approved for Adoption can stir a serenity like skipping stones on water for a delightfully long time.

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Approved for Adoption

This remarkable animated doc traces the unconventional upbringing of the filmmaker Jung Henin, one of thousands of Korean children adopted by Western families after the end of the Korean War. It is the story of a boy stranded between two cultures. Sepia-toned animated vignettes – some humorous and some poetic – track Jung from the day he first meets his new blond siblings, through elementary school, and into his teenage years, when his emerging sense of identity begins to create fissures at home and ignite the latent biases of his adoptive parents. The filmmaker tells his story using his own animation intercut with snippets of super-8 family footage and archival film. The result is an animated memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous and wry, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.

"Dazzling! Incredibly Moving!"
- Film International

"Rich in emotion, humor, and poetry."
- Premiere

"A story of resilience and great courage!"
- Le Figaro

"Unflaggingly honest, beautiful and revealing!"
- Epoch Times

"It's impossible not to be charmed!"
- Variety
Not Rated
Genre
Animated, Family, Bio-pic, Documentary
Runtime
72
Language
French
Director
Jung
Cast
Mahé Collet
Awards:
Winner, Audience Award, Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Winner, UNICEF Award, Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Nominee, Cristal, Annecy International Animated Film Festival
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FEATURED REVIEW
Robert Koehler, Film Comment Magazine

A salad bowl of mixed references and forms, Jung Henin and Laurent Boileau’s Approved for Adoption marks the latest example of the animated documentary, a form whose most interesting example remains Richard Linklater’s Waking Life but which likely received its greatest exposure with Waltz with ...

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