‘POV’ Unravels Assumptions About International Adoption, Reunion, and Queer Kinship in Between Goodbyes
Overview
Premieres Monday, December 8, 2025 at 10pm on PBS Television; Streaming Available on PBS App Until March 8, 2026
Trailer • Download Press Photos • #BetweenGoodbyesPBS
Director Jota Mun challenges conventional narratives about adoption that muzzle the original family’s voice.
Brooklyn, N.Y. – October 21, 2025 – POV, the multi-Emmy®, Oscar® and Peabody Award-winning documentary series, presents Between Goodbyes, the feature debut of first-time director Jota Mun, and produced by Mun, Zoe Sua Cho, and Barb Lee. The film follows a queer Korean adoptee reconnecting with her original mother in Seoul, as she unravels decades of silence, stigma, confronting long-held regrets, and cultural misunderstandings with tenderness, humor, and resilience. As a fellow queer Korean adoptee, Mun’s lived experience brings personal insight and uncommon intimacy to a story that reframes conventional narratives about adoption and kinship.
Called by RogertEbert.com "a familial drama that captures themes of identity and what it means to call a place, or people, home," Between Goodbyes will make its national broadcast premiere on Monday, December 8, 2025 at 10pm (check local listings) on PBS Television. It will then be available to stream until March 8, 2026 at pbs.org, the PBS App, and PBS’s YouTube page. Now in its 38th season, POV remains America's longest-running nonfiction series on American television.
Unlike a common stereotype of international adoption, Okgyun Kang was married when her fourth child, Mieke, was placed for adoption to the Netherlands. Two Evangelical Christians in the Netherlands adopted Mieke from South Korea in 1982. She didn’t consider searching for her original family until 2002, when, unexpectedly, they reached out to her. Amid the intense social pressure of the era, Okgyun has long carried regret and continues to ask her daughter for forgiveness. Years into a tumultuous reunion, Mieke returns to Seoul to spend time with her original family. As backstories surface from both mother and daughter, the women share meals, memories, and sharp truths.
Director Jota Mun filmed Between Goodbyes from the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic through 2021. Archival photos and footage trace the family’s milestones: a reunion in the Netherlands in 2002, time together in South Korea in 2016, and another visit in 2021. Through candid conversations with siblings and extended family, Between Goodbyes reveals how secrecy, migration, and queerness intersect—and how humor and patience can bridge even the widest gaps—inviting audiences into a story that is as complicated as it is loving. Featured in the film are participants Okgyun Kang, Mieke Murkes, and Ruth Chon.
“After growing up wondering what an original mother could be like, I was immediately struck by hearing how Okgyun and her husband searched for their daughter for over 10 years,” said director Jota Mun. “Meeting Mieke and her entire family upended what I understood about original mothers and being in reunion.
While observing their struggles to connect, I realized there's so little information available to prepare either side for what being in reunion might feel like. In particular, there is almost no public information about what original mothers actually think and feel. When I finally met Okgyun, she was shockingly human - nuanced, imperfect, and full of her own feelings.
Between Goodbyes is an open love letter to all original mothers who have suffered from family separation. I sincerely hope the film will catalyze a deeper understanding of how the adoption industry affects families around the world.”
“Between Goodbyes challenges traditional views on adoptions while showcasing a complex relationship between an adoptive family and a birth family,” said Erika Dilday, Executive Director, American Documentary and Executive Producer of POV and America ReFramed. “By exploring adoption from a long-term perspective, director Jota Mun’s film thoughtfully raises questions about how a lack of transparency and communication can affect an individual and multiple families across generations.”
Between Goodbyes made its world premiere at the 2024 DMZ International Film Festival, winning the Emerging Filmmaker Award for Jota Mun. The film won the Special Jury Award for Feature Documentary at the 2024 Santa Fe International Film Festival, and was an Official Selection of 2024 DOC NYC
Raves include:
"Beautifully conceived and profoundly multilayered, a heartbreaking and uplifting story of family, identity, and acceptance.” – Chicago International Film Festival
"Director Mun employs a nuanced and sensitive approach, crafting a narrative that deviates significantly from the traditional adoption narrative.” – DMZ International Documentary Film Festival
Between Goodbyes is a Jjigae Productions, Point Made Films, and Avonhead co-production. The director is Jota Mun. The producers are Jota Mun, Zoe Sua Cho, and Barb Lee. The director of photography is Jimin Lee, and the editor is Michelle Chang. Sound design is by Sung Rok Choi and the composer is Gene Back. The consulting producer is Deann Borshay Liem and the consulting editor is Jason Pollard. The impact producer is Christina ‘X’ Seong and the Social Media Manager is Juliana Aiken. The executive producers are Alex Gibney, Maiken Baird, and Erika Dilday, and Chris White for American Documentary.
Credits
Download Between Goodbyes photos.
Click Between Goodbyes Press Kit to access the festival press notes.
Director: Jota Mun
Producers: Jota Mun, Zoe Sua Cho, Barb Lee
Cast/Participants: Okgyun Kang, Mieke Murkes, Ruth Chon
Executive Producers: Alex Gibney, Maiken Baird, Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary
Director of Photography: Jimin Lee
Consulting Producer: Deann Borshay Liem
Consulting Editor: Jason Pollard
Editor: Michelle Chang
Sound Designer: Sung Rok Choi
Composer: Gene Back
Languages: Korean, English, Dutch
Country: USA
Year: 2024
About the Filmmakers
Jota Mun, Director, Producer, Between Goodbyes
Jota Mun (they/them) is the director and producer of Between Goodbyes, which had its world premiere at the DMZ International Film Festival (2024), where they won the Emerging Filmmaker Award. The film was an official selection of DOC NYC (2024), Seattle International Film Festival (2025), and Santa Fe International Film Festival (2024) where it won a Special Jury Award for Feature Documentary. As an editor, Jota's credits include the Emmy®-nominated Netflix series Who Killed Malcolm X? and the first episode of Gospel, a PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates.
Alex Gibney, Executive Producer, Between Goodbyes
Alex Gibney (he/him) was called “the most important documentarian of our time” by Esquire Magazine. He has a signature cinematic style that lends itself to penetrating, gripping, and deeply insightful documentaries. He is the Founder / President of Jigsaw Productions.
Maiken Baird, Executive Producer, Between Goodbyes
Maiken Baird (she/her) most recently directed and produced Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich for Netflix. Baird was an Executive Producer of the Academy Award®-winning film Icarus. She is a frequent collaborator of Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, first producing Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer in 2010; later collaborations include Totally Under Control and BAFTA-nominated City of Ghosts.
Barb Lee, Producer, Between Goodbyes
Barb Lee (she/her) is the Founder and President of both Point Made Films, a documentary production company and Point Made Learning, a consulting company that, using the stories of PMF, provides organizations with story-based education on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Lee is the director and producer of the feature length documentary Adopted (2008). The film includes a companion DVD, Adopted: We Can Do Better which is still used as training material in adoption agencies across the country.
Zoe Sua Cho, Producer, Between Goodbyes
Zoe Sua Cho (she/her) is a Korean New Zealander filmmaker and producer known for award-winning films. She produced THEY, an official selection at Cannes (2017), and edited and produced House of Hummingbird, which won the Grand Prix at the Berlinale’s Generation section (2019). She also produced Gina Kim’s VR Film Tearless, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival (2021). Her other credits include contributions to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and supervising production at Little Monster Films, the Oscar®-winning company founded by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Zoe is a Sundance Fellow and BAFTA Newcomer.
About
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. The series is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied (1989), Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1992), Rabbit in the Room (1999), Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2001), Made in L.A. (2007), American Promise (2013), Not Going Quietly (2021), While We Watched (2022), A House Made of Splinters (2022), The Last Out (2023) and the mini-series And She Could be Next (2020). Throughout its history POV has featured the work of award-winning, innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras, Nanfu Wang, Frederick Wiseman, Emiko Omori, Janus Metz Pedersen and Ava DuVernay. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. In 2024, Indiewire named seven POV films in its roundup of “The 50 Best Documentaries of the 21st Century”: Faya Dayi (2021), The Mole Agent (2020), Minding The Gap (2018), Cameraperson (2016), The Look of Silence (2015), The Act of Killing (2013) and After Tiller (2013). All POV programs are available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website.
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