Frameline46: Coming to You

Offering a rare, years-long look at two supportive mothers alongside their queer kids, Coming to You celebrates the strength of each family’s supportive bonds even amid an often hostile cultural climate. As late-teen Hankyeol works through countless obstacles in transitioning, their mother Nabi moves from struggling to understand to becoming their best advocate and ally. At the same time, flight attendant Vivian supports her gay son Yejoon as he navigates life as a newly out university student in Toronto and back home.

Providing an intimate glimpse into the trajectory of all four lives, director Byun Gyu-ri makes space for both the struggles and victories accompanying each character’s movement into living out queer lives. First loves, operations, marches, and bureaucratic obstacles combine to make for an expansive look at the evolving terrain of queerness in Korea over days and years. Through it all, each small family’s bonds hold firm, becoming stronger from each obstacle. By its end, Coming to You crystallizes into an honest showcase of both the endurance and the value of familial closeness and support.