Macon Film Festival - Day 1

I went to the Macon Film Festival. Some of the films are really good. There was one based on a story by Franz Kafka. The screenwriter and filmmaker bit off more than they could chew. There was a 5 minute short film from Spain called "Curvas" and it was really funny. The actors were great comedians.

What stayed with me the most were the documentaries. At film festivals they are more raw and personal. They come close to a network documentary without the constant teasing of what is to come next and the lengthy commercials. The story unfolds like the layers of an onion.

It's the children that drew me in. The first was a Korea war orphan that was adopted shortly before he was six. He had great American parents. I shudder to say adopted because he clearly was a member of the family. Mom passed away when he was twenty. He eventually went back to college and got his degree in electrical engineering like his dad told him he should do. The psychology degree was not enough.

Today, he is a successful inventor of medical equipment. The Korea he returned to at 46 was an incredibly developed country unlike the war torn country he left. With all he had achieved and the positive way he looked at his adoption and life, the abandonment still haunted him.

Biological mom took him to a market and told him to look straight ahead. When he turned around, she was gone. He became a street child at four until an orphanage took him in. From there he came to Massachusetts via New York City to become a part of the Clement's clan.

What struck me the most was how he rationalized his mother's abandonment. My gut said, "how could someone be so hard hearted to abandon their child." I can't bear to give away one of my dogs.

When you look at him, he looks like his Caucasian American father who abandoned him first. In Asian societies just like in the United States, children born out of wedlock and of mixed race were frowned on in the 1950's. Mom had to have been desperate.

I think of the American GI who fathered him. He knew he existed.

He obviously has accepted their choices. What shone through for me was he was a survivor and a success and would have been whether he was adopted or not. Its that inner light or resiliency that some people possess. My own father survived a horrible childhood and adolescence during the American depression of the 1930s.

This is what I like about film festivals. The films are not necessarily what you think you would like to watch. However they make you walk away with something to think about.
 


Off the topic, I have had a few to mention I have so many pictures of animals. Well I don't have to get a signed model release. lol  Thanks for the kind messages though. I'll try to get a few pictures at the film festival tomorrow night. Oh, don't forget to share on  the animal story blog hop.
http://imatalkingboutmydog.blogspot.com/