IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE
Winner, Audience Award, San Francisco Asian American Festival
Winner, Best Directing and Editing, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Festival
NOW ON DVD
Winner, Best Directing and Editing, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Festival
NOW ON DVD
Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40-year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the US in 1966. Told to keep her true identity a secret from her new American family, this eight-year-old girl quickly forgot she was ever anyone else. But why had her identity been switched? And who was the real Cha Jung Hee?
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee is the search to find the answers. It follows acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem as she returns to her native Korea to find her “double,” the mysterious girl whose place she took in America. Traversing the landscapes of memory, amnesia and identity, while also uncovering layers of deception in her adoption, this moving and provocative film probes the ethics of international adoptions and reveals the cost of living a lie. Part mystery, part personal odyssey, it raises fundamental questions about who we are…and who we could be but for the hands of fate.
For more information, please visit Mu Films.
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee is the search to find the answers. It follows acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem as she returns to her native Korea to find her “double,” the mysterious girl whose place she took in America. Traversing the landscapes of memory, amnesia and identity, while also uncovering layers of deception in her adoption, this moving and provocative film probes the ethics of international adoptions and reveals the cost of living a lie. Part mystery, part personal odyssey, it raises fundamental questions about who we are…and who we could be but for the hands of fate.
For more information, please visit Mu Films.
WATCH THE TRAILER
PRODUCTION TEAM
Deann Borshay Liem (Producer/Director) has over twenty years experience working in development, production and distribution of educational and public television programming. She was Producer, Director, Writer for the Emmy Award-nominated documentary, First Person Plural (Sundance, 2000; Best Bay Area Documentary, San Francisco International Film Festival), and Executive Producer for Spencer Nakasako’s Kelly Loves Tony (PBS, 1998) and AKA Don Bonus (PBS, 1996, Emmy Award). Most recently she co-produced Special Circumstances about Chilean exile, Hector Salgado (to be released in 2007). She was the former Executive Director of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA) where she supervised the development, distribution and broadcast of new films for public television. Deann is a recipient of a Rockefeller Film/Video Fellowship for In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee.
Charlotte Lagarde (Co-Producer) is the award-winning Producer/Director of Heart of the Sea: Kapolioka’ehukai (2002), a documentary about the Hawaiian surfing legend, Rell Sunn, which won numerous awards including the 2003 PBS Independent Lens Audience Award. Her most recent project, Beautiful Son, which chronicles one family’s journey to find treatment for their autistic son, will be released in 2007. Lagarde's productions Voting in America (2004), Every Child Should Have a Chance (2001), Tribal Sovereignty: Unplugged (1998) and Juvenile Justice: Unplugged (1997), are distributed in public schools throughout the United States. Her films Swell (1996), about four generations of female surfers and Zeuf (1994), about a woman surfer's struggle with breast cancer, were broadcast on PBS stations and the Sundance Channel. Lagarde was the executive producer of Reporter Zero, nominated for Best Documentary at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival.
Michael Chin (Director of Photography) has over twenty years of experience photographing documentary and feature films. He has served as Director of Photography for Eyes On The Prize 1&2; America’s War On Poverty; The Great Depression; Academy Award-winning, In The Shadow of The Stars; Dancing; A Hymn For Alvin Ailey; Malcom X: Make it Plain; Irish In America; Cadillac Desert, Yesterday’s Tomorrow (Showtime); Africans In America; America’s Hero: The Joe Dimaggio Story; First Person Plural; The Floating World of Masami Teraoka; Zoot Suit; The Roman Empire in the First Century; Chicago: City of the Century; Peter and Paul-The River and the Rock, among many others. His feature film credits include: Wayne Wang's Chan is Missing and Dim Sum, Philip Gotanda's The Kiss and Life Tastes Good; Raoul Peck's Haitian Corner, and Lawrence Hott's The Boyhood of John Muir.
JT Takagi (Sound Recordist) is a much sought-after Sound Recordist having worked on numerous award-winning documentaries, including Spike Lee’s Four Little Girls, American Master’s Paul Robeson, and American Experiences’ Marcus Garvey and Massachusett’s 54th. Recently, she recorded sound for Citizen King for Roja Productions/ American Experience, Sweet Honey in the Rock for Firelight Media, Mali to Mississippi/History of the Blues for Blues, Inc., Matters of Race Series for Roja Productions for PBS, and Role Reversal for Optomen USA for A&E. Takagi has also directed/produced several films, including Homes Apart: Korea, and with Hye Jung Park, The Women Outside, both of which focus on Korea, the impact of the Cold War, the militarization of the Korean peninsula, and the role of the U.S. in Korean history.
Vivien Hillgrove (Editor) has over 20 years of experience as an editor for both narrative feature films and documentaries. Her documentary credits include Lourdes Portillo’s The Devil Never Sleeps, Senorita Extraviada, and Corpus: A Home Movie For Selena; First Person Plural by Deann Borshay Liem; Homeland: Four Portraits of Natisve Action by Roberta Grossman; Heart of the Sea; and Future of Food. She was also editor for the Academy Award winning documentary, Broken Rainbow, produced by Earthworks and Hawaii-Born In Paradise, an IMAX film directed by Bob Hillman. The narrative feature films she has edited include Henry and June (picture editor) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (picture editor and supervising dialogue editor). She was supervising dialogue editor for Blue Velvet, The Mosquito Coast and Amadeus. She also served as dialogue editor for The Right Stuff and Never Cry Wolf, and as picture editor for Emiko Omori’s Hot Summer Winds.
Charlotte Lagarde (Co-Producer) is the award-winning Producer/Director of Heart of the Sea: Kapolioka’ehukai (2002), a documentary about the Hawaiian surfing legend, Rell Sunn, which won numerous awards including the 2003 PBS Independent Lens Audience Award. Her most recent project, Beautiful Son, which chronicles one family’s journey to find treatment for their autistic son, will be released in 2007. Lagarde's productions Voting in America (2004), Every Child Should Have a Chance (2001), Tribal Sovereignty: Unplugged (1998) and Juvenile Justice: Unplugged (1997), are distributed in public schools throughout the United States. Her films Swell (1996), about four generations of female surfers and Zeuf (1994), about a woman surfer's struggle with breast cancer, were broadcast on PBS stations and the Sundance Channel. Lagarde was the executive producer of Reporter Zero, nominated for Best Documentary at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival.
Michael Chin (Director of Photography) has over twenty years of experience photographing documentary and feature films. He has served as Director of Photography for Eyes On The Prize 1&2; America’s War On Poverty; The Great Depression; Academy Award-winning, In The Shadow of The Stars; Dancing; A Hymn For Alvin Ailey; Malcom X: Make it Plain; Irish In America; Cadillac Desert, Yesterday’s Tomorrow (Showtime); Africans In America; America’s Hero: The Joe Dimaggio Story; First Person Plural; The Floating World of Masami Teraoka; Zoot Suit; The Roman Empire in the First Century; Chicago: City of the Century; Peter and Paul-The River and the Rock, among many others. His feature film credits include: Wayne Wang's Chan is Missing and Dim Sum, Philip Gotanda's The Kiss and Life Tastes Good; Raoul Peck's Haitian Corner, and Lawrence Hott's The Boyhood of John Muir.
JT Takagi (Sound Recordist) is a much sought-after Sound Recordist having worked on numerous award-winning documentaries, including Spike Lee’s Four Little Girls, American Master’s Paul Robeson, and American Experiences’ Marcus Garvey and Massachusett’s 54th. Recently, she recorded sound for Citizen King for Roja Productions/ American Experience, Sweet Honey in the Rock for Firelight Media, Mali to Mississippi/History of the Blues for Blues, Inc., Matters of Race Series for Roja Productions for PBS, and Role Reversal for Optomen USA for A&E. Takagi has also directed/produced several films, including Homes Apart: Korea, and with Hye Jung Park, The Women Outside, both of which focus on Korea, the impact of the Cold War, the militarization of the Korean peninsula, and the role of the U.S. in Korean history.
Vivien Hillgrove (Editor) has over 20 years of experience as an editor for both narrative feature films and documentaries. Her documentary credits include Lourdes Portillo’s The Devil Never Sleeps, Senorita Extraviada, and Corpus: A Home Movie For Selena; First Person Plural by Deann Borshay Liem; Homeland: Four Portraits of Natisve Action by Roberta Grossman; Heart of the Sea; and Future of Food. She was also editor for the Academy Award winning documentary, Broken Rainbow, produced by Earthworks and Hawaii-Born In Paradise, an IMAX film directed by Bob Hillman. The narrative feature films she has edited include Henry and June (picture editor) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (picture editor and supervising dialogue editor). She was supervising dialogue editor for Blue Velvet, The Mosquito Coast and Amadeus. She also served as dialogue editor for The Right Stuff and Never Cry Wolf, and as picture editor for Emiko Omori’s Hot Summer Winds.
