FILMAKERS LIBRARY
Multicultural Studies
Fighting Grandpa
Directed by Greg Pak
- "...a sensitive and probing portrayal of Korean immigrant grandparents
and their marriage through the brilliant use of home movies, photographs,
and interviews." - DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival program
Korean-American
filmmaker Grek Pak creates a touching meditation on the human heart. He tells
the story of his immigrant grandmother's seventy-year struggle with her husband.
Forced to give up her dreams of becoming a nurse, left with four children for
ten years alone in Korea while her husband studied in America, and finally brought
to Hawaii to endure new hardships created in part by her husband's parsimonious
ways, Grandma had every right to be bitter. But, as the filmmaker discovers,
questions of love have no simple answers. When Grandpa dies, Grandma's stoicism
gives way to a piercing grief which surprises and confounds her family. Clearly,
the love that bound together their immigrant forebears, shaped by a history
of hardship, could only be dimly understood by the young of today.
Gold Apple, National Educational Media Network, 1999
Gold Winner, Student Academy Awards, 1998
Telluride Film Festival, 1998
Hamptons International Film Festival, 1998
Asian American International Film Festival, 1998
21 min. Video or DVD. Sale $250. Video rental $50.
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