Malene Choi (‘The Quiet Migration’): “I wanted to show that feeling of being an alien, a freak in a society that adopts you”

The section of first and second films, Meeting Point, today welcomed director Malene Choi, who won in this section with her debut, The Return, five years ago. Now she returns with The Quiet Migration, a new twist on the issue of adoption already addressed in her debut film based on her personal experience.

In this case, and through a young Korean boy adopted in Denmark, he reflects “the racism present even in adoptive families”. “I wanted to show that feeling of being an alien, a freak in a society that adopts you,” he said about a protagonist who is also physically very different from the Danish boys, and not only because of his facial features.

The Danish director of Korean origin recalled that Denmark is a “young nation in terms of immigration”, a phenomenon that began in the 1950s and 1960s, and its inhabitants, therefore, “are not used to living with other cultures”. In a way, The Quiet Migration breaks with the image of the “happy country” from the outside, and Malene Choi has been “delighted” about it and about showing other sides of the Nordics.