Films

Preceded by short film GOOD BOY.

Liquor Store Dreams follows director So Yun Um and her friend Danny, both self-titled “Liquor Store Babies,” children of Korean immigrant parents who operate liquor stores in Los Angeles. As second-generation immigrants, So and Danny are on their own journeys to fulfilling their creative dreams. So sets out to be a filmmaker (to her father’s bemusement), while Danny works his dream job at Nike. Their aspirations are family lives are presented in a larger context of Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles, indelibly linked to the the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins in a Korean convenience store, and the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police brutality against Rodney King and ensuing looting of Korean businesses. Refreshingly honest and eye-opening, gently comical, and universally empathetic, Liquor Store Dreams is a fascinating personal narrative mapped onto a painful chapter in American history.

Introduction by Ty Cooper (VAFF)