The critically acclaimed French/Belgian animated documentary Approved for Adoption has lined up some US release dates. Distributor GKIDS will open the film beginning November 8 at the Angelika Film Center in New York, and November 22 at Laemmle Music Hall in LA. Expansion to other cities will follow. The film, directed by Jung Henin and Laurent Boileau, has picked up numerous awards on the festival circuit, including the Audience and UNICEF awards at Annecy in 2012.

Adapted from Jung’s graphic novel Couleur de Peau: Miel (Color of Skin: Honey), Approved for Adoption recounts the upbringing of Jung, who was among the thousands of Korean children adopted by Western families after the end of the Korean War:

It is the story of a boy stranded between two cultures. Sepia-toned animated vignettes – some humorous and some poetic – track Jung from the day he first meets his new blond siblings, through elementary school, and into his teenage years, when his emerging sense of identity begins to create fissures at home and ignite the latent biases of his adoptive parents. The filmmaker tells his story using his own animation intercut with snippets of super-8 family footage and archival film. The result is a memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous and wry, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.

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