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Documentarian Deann Borshay Liem’s films trace a personal history of adoption, a mistaken identity and the search for family. Her documentary-in-progress, Relative Strangers, widens that lens: it follows six mixed-race Korean adoptees over nine years as they search for birth families using DNA testing and social media. In an October 7, 2026 interview with The Korea Times, Liem describes the histories and assumptions those searches bring into view.
How Liem learned the story of her adoption
Liem was adopted from Korea to the United States in 1966. She says she spent much of her childhood believing she was an orphan. In the early 1980s, she learned that her birth mother and siblings were alive. She also discovered that her identity had been switched with another child’s and that her adoption documents had been falsified.
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Liem told The Korea Times that South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found her unlawful substitution and said her Korean mother had not consented to the overseas adoption. The newspaper reported that in March 2025 the commission recognized human rights violations in 56 overseas-adoption cases, including Liem’s. That is a commission finding as reported by the newspaper—not a court judgment or a measure of how common such cases were.
Three films that trace different parts of the history
| Film | Focus |
|---|---|
| First Person Plural (2000) | Liem’s search for and reunion with her Korean family. |
| In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee (2010) | An investigation into the identity of the girl whose name was substituted for Liem’s, and the adoption history and ethics behind that switch. |
| Geographies of Kinship | A broader account of Korean transnational adoption and multiple adoptee experiences. |
Liem describes her first two films as “intimate first-person explorations” that helped her recover her personal history and identity. Her later work has also turned toward the wider history of transnational adoption, community-building and healing. Mu Films’ biography describes her documentary work as exploring war, memory, family and identity.
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What Relative Strangers follows
In the October 2026 interview, Liem said Relative Strangers was in the final stages of production. The film follows six mixed-race Korean adoptees over nine years as they use DNA testing and social media to search for birth families. Liem was raising funds for additional scenes and interviews. The interview does not establish a release date, so the film should not be treated as already released.
Liem says the participants’ experiences bring attention to American military camptowns, the stigma and pressures facing young Korean mothers, racial stereotypes about Korean women, and adoptees’ childhoods in white and Black families in the United States and Europe. Their stories, in her account, complicate simplistic assumptions about women who dated servicemen and about how mothers viewed their mixed-race children. The film’s focus is the participants’ searches and the histories around them; it does not make their experiences a stand-in for every Korean adoptee or settle every historical question.
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Where to find Liem’s films and related resources
Mu Films’ filmmaker page provides information about Liem and her work. New Day Films lists Geographies of Kinship and educator resources. These are useful starting points for viewers who want to explore the films or use them in an educational setting.
The participants in Relative Strangers use DNA testing as one part of their searches, but the interview does not evaluate consumer DNA services. A test cannot be assumed to confirm a person’s identity or lead to a reunion.
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