Please join us for a screening of Minari, introduced by Professor Sung Eun Choi, History Department.

 ***Co-sponsored by Bentley’s Office of Sustainability***

Minari (2020-U.S.-115 min.) directed by Lee Isaac Chung

Lee Isaac Chung has said, of his loose autobiographical film, that he began by sketching out a series of small memories from his childhood. This is a testament to that experience, both the bitter and the sweet, of growing up in a Korean American immigrant family in 1980s America. The film begins with a family of four in a moving truck, taking themselves from steady but backbreaking work in a California factory to build something more for themselves in the Midwest; Jacob (Steven Yeun) dreams of starting a farm on 50 acres of good American dirt in rural Arkansas, with his reluctant wife Monica (Yeri Han) by his side. However, it’s their two children who are at the center of the story, older sister Anne (Noel Cho) and young, adorably chubby-cheeked David (Alan Kim), who is the stand-in for writer-director Lee Isaac Chung himself. [Minari] is tender and often funny, particularly when the children’s grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from her home country to help look after them, making a splash in young David’s life and immediately becoming obsessed by American wrestling and Mountain Dew.

Won Best Supporting Actress Oscar and BAFTA for Youn Yuh-jung. Won Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language Golden Globe. Nominated for numerous other Oscars and BAFTAs. 2020 Grand Jury Prize Winner for Dramatic Film and 2020 Audience Award Winner for Dramatic Film, Sundance Film Festival

Bentley’s Fall 2025 International Film Series is made possible with generous support from the Department of Global Studies, the Department of English and Media Studies, the Valente Center for the Arts & Sciences, the Bentley Library, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Film and Media Studies Lab, the Academic Technology Center, and Bentley’s African Student Association.