Directed by So Yun Um
Executive Produced by Diane Quon, Daniel J. Chalfen, Bearcat Content, Tanuj Chopra-Consulting Produced by Nanfu Wang
World Premiere - 2022 Tribeca Film Festival - Viewpoints
About the film LIQUOR STORE DREAMS
Director and liquor store baby, So Yun Um and her father have never seen eye to eye on anything, especially not her career choices. Although his liquor store has provided her financial stability to dream big, there’s tension between father and daughter, and how their Korean culture and store have had a complicated past within a Black community. So goes on a journey to unpack this tension as well as the generational divide between her and her father. In contrast, in the wake of his father’s passing, Danny Park quits his dream job at Nike and returns home to help his mother run the family store on Skid Row. Unlike So, he’s inexplicably drawn towards home, with a dream of uniting the Black and Korean communities at his store. He’s immediately determined to create a path different from his father’s but soon realizes the insurmountable weight of being a small business owner. LIQUOR STORE DREAMS is a portrait of two second generation Korean Americans trying to create their own future by honoring their parent’s past through understanding and healing.
SO YUN UM (Producer & Director) So Yun Um is a Korean American Filmmaker born and based in Los Angeles. She explores the intimate stories of marginalized people through her poetic visual language and poignant editing style. Her directorial documentary feature film, LIQUOR STORE DREAMS, about second generation Korean American children of liquor store owners in Los Angeles, will have its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. So is a CAAM 2021 Fellow with mentorship support from acclaimed Director Nanfu Wang. She is also an alumnus of the Armed with a Camera Fellowship by Visual Communication, recipient of the Sundance Uprise Grant and a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee. She is a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and the Asian American Documentary Network.