[On the Ground at BIFF] “It Wasn’t Your Birth Mother’s Fault”: ‘Home Sick’ Director Sørensen’s First Confession Reveals Truth Behind 56 Falsified Adoptions

Tracing lost blood ties through a stranger’s lens

Tanja Taekyung Inwol Sørensen, who was adopted to Denmark at 2 months old in 1982, came to the 31st Busan International Film Festival with 'Home Sick: At the End of the Sea', an autobiographical documentary tracing her roots. She is one of 56 adoptees whose human rights violations were recognized by the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' after she uncovered that her adoption records had been falsified to identify her as an abandoned child. Her long journey to deliver a message of forgiveness and comfort to her birth mother in South Korea has finally reached audiences on screen.

Born in South Korea, she was adopted by a white Danish couple who ran a gas station and raised under the name 'Tanja Sørensen.' Growing up as the only Asian person in a rural Danish village on flat land without a single mountain, she inevitably struggled deeply with her 'identity.'

Breaking the silence, she picks up a camera

She sought answers about her origins from her adoptive parents and her birth mother in South Korea, but never received a complete response. Her adoptive parents died young, while her birth mother cut off further contact after several exchanges of letters. To reconstruct her fragmented memories, Sørensen picked up a camera and interviewed her Danish relatives, including uncles, aunts and step-siblings, confronting the wounds of a past she had tried to avoid.

“I had countless things I wanted to say to my birth mother in South Korea, but contact was cut off before I could say them all. More than anything, I wanted her to know that none of this tragedy was her fault,” she said. The result of that relentless documentation, 'Home Sick' became both a tender love letter to two mothers and a healing process that seeks to mend the scars of a shattered family.

A hidden past and the state’s acquiescence leave wounds unhealed

Sørensen’s work goes beyond a simple 'search for roots.' She probed the structural forces that pushed her into the extreme circumstance of adoption. In the process, she uncovered the shocking fact that her adoption documents had been falsified to identify her as an 'orphan' for someone’s financial gain and administrative convenience.

She formally submitted her case to the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission’s investigation officially recognized a state-level 'human rights violation' in which children separated from their families were passed off as orphans during the overseas adoption process. A total of 56 adoptees, including Sørensen, achieved the significant result of having the state confirm that they had suffered similar harm.

A cold gaze toward single mothers lies at the root of the tragedy

But the obstacles in the real world remain formidable. Neither the South Korean nor Danish government has provided any meaningful compensation, and even after the findings were announced, victims have not been guaranteed full access to their original adoption records. Sørensen criticized the lack of “any institutional change or improvement” since the commission’s announcement, calling for 'the right to access information' in adoption records to be guaranteed as a basic human right, along with prompt procedures to restore damaged civil rights and provide appropriate compensation.

She identifies South Korean society’s repressive and negative attitude toward single mothers as the most fundamental cause of the 'overseas adoption' problem. The social stigma also helps explain why her birth mother felt compelled to cut off contact, she said. An estimated 200,000 South Korean children were sent overseas after the Korean War in the 1950s, the largest number from any country in the world.

“I suspect the decisive reason my birth mother cut off contact with me was social shame. Social oppression exists because having a child outside a married household, as a single mother, is viewed as shameful. If society had fully embraced single mothers, a massive adoption crisis like this would never have occurred.”

Crossing borders: A new diaspora story for the world

Through her own turbulent family history, Sørensen has sharply exposed a dark side of South Korean society. Her perspective is now expanding into a broader worldview. Living with a complex identity, she plans to continue documenting the lives of people who leave their homelands and settle as outsiders elsewhere.

“The subject I’m most deeply interested in right now is 'the diaspora,'” she said, revealing her hopes for her next project. “It’s still in the early stages of development, but I want to tell the stories of South Korean communities that have put down roots in South America.”