Grand Teton is a video portrait of a first-generation Korean American family in transition, as Julia Kim Smith films her family assembling once again for a group photo in the same spot where they had stood 35 years earlier in Grand Teton National Park. Through juxtaposition of photography and video, Smith documents the process of assimilation and challenges those racial and cultural boundaries of what it means to be “American.”
“A stunning video portrait of a first-generation Korean-American family. Director Julia Kim Smith films her family assembling for a group photograph in the same spot in Grand Teton National Park where 35 years earlier they stood for the same portrait. That a story can be told in barely five minutes of a static shot of two sisters and their mom, and range in emotion from whimsy to a mother’s tears is remarkable. A director’s love letter to her family.” Mick Muirfield, Film Programmer, Slamdance Film Festival