Living in Between: The Cinematographic and Narrative Form of Korean American Feminist Film

Since 2015, the number of mainstream Korean American films has substantially increased. These films portray various imaginings of Korean Americanness largely elided from the American film lexicon, particularly highlighting Korean American women and their experiences. Apparent in them is the collective in-betweenness of the protagonists. Not only do characters find their identities challenged by a nebulous sense of affective belonging to South Korea and America, but they are caught between past and present. This thesis analyzes how cinematic form can construct and accentuate the lived liminality of female Korean American identity in three films directed and written by Korean diaspora filmmakers in North America: Ms. Purple (2019), Umma (2022), and Past Lives (2023). The positionality of the female protagonists in these films is examined through a lens of feminist and feminist film theory accompanied by diasporic film theory and psychoanalysis using a methodology of textual and plot-based film analysis.