Deann borshay liem

Deann Borshay Liem is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian known for films that explore war, memory, family and identity including her landmark adoption films First Person Plural, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee and Geographies of Kinship.
Deann Borshay is known for Geographies of Kinship (2019), Memory of Forgotten War (2013) and First Person Plural (2000).
Deann Borshay Liem has over twenty years experience working in development, production and distribution of independent documentaries.

•

Crossings

Synopsis

In Crossings, a group of international women peacemakers sets out on a risky journey across the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, calling for an end to a 70-year war that has divided the Korean peninsula. The groundbreaking mission of Women Cross DMZ is captured in an intimate cinema vérité style, framed with historic newsreels of the Korean War and punctuated with dramatic contemporary news coverage.

Although the Korean War was halted by armistice in 1953, the warring parties never signed a peace treaty. Now 70 years later, the threat of renewed fighting looms as American troops continue to occupy the Korean peninsula, North Korea and the United States remain adversaries, and millions of Koreans are separated from their family members.

From threats of annihilation to promises of peace, the rollercoaster ride of U.S.-North Korea relations provides key moments of drama throughout the story. But the film’s protagonists are thirty women activists who dare to tread forbidden territory to draw global attention to th

•

Deann Borshay Liem Reflects on ‘Crossings’ and 70 Years of Un-Ended War

It has been exactly 70 years since military commanders of the United States, North Korea, and China signed an armistice to halt active combat in the Korean War. They recommended that the corresponding governments return within 90 days to settle the question of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea and “the peaceful settlement of the Korean question.” But a formal peace agreement was never reached: the war technically continues to this day.

That war has defined my identity and continues to guide my life’s work. When I was adopted from South Korea in 1966 at the age of eight, everyone thought I was a war orphan. My documents indicated that my father had died during the Korean War and my mother died giving birth to me. I had no other family.

I dealt with my adoption by forgetting everything about Korea. The amnesia was so complete that if my Korean mother had looked me in the face, I would not have known who she was.

My journey to recover my memories and recuperate my lost identity led m

•

Deann Borshay Liem

Deann Borshay Liem has over twenty years experience working in development, production and distribution of independent documentaries. In addition to the new film, Geographies of Kinship, she is Producer, Director, and Writer of the Emmy Award- nominated documentary, First Person Plural and the award-winning films, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee and Memory of Forgotten War.

Deann served as Executive Producer for Kelly Loves Tony, AKA Don Bonus, On Coal River, Ishi’s Return, and Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story. She also served as Co-Producer for Special Circumstances and Burqa Boxers and as Story Editor for the Peabody-winning film, The Apology. She is the former director of the Center for Asian American Media where she supervised development, distribution and broadcast of new films for public television. A former Sundance Institute Fellow and recipient of a Rockefeller Film/Video Fellowship, Deann is the 2018 recipient of the Women, Peace and Security Fellowship from the San Francisco Film Society for her work-in-progress film about women peacemakers, Crossi