always having to tell her story

September 16, 2024 9:15 AM

27 years on, having been adopted by business woman Prue Leith, Li-Da Kruger returns to Cambodia in search of her biological parents (2001). Made by The Cambodian Film Company/FulcrumTV and directed by Tamara Gordon. This is a 12 minute short video Li-Da Kruger, the adopted daughter of British Baking Show judge Prue Leith. A full documentary chronicling her search for her birth family was released a few years ago. (article in The Guardian).
posted by bq (2 comments total)

It's interesting to me that the 2001 short film must have been in production around the same time PBS was producing Daughter From Danang, a documentary that won prizes at Sundance in early 2002. To compare and contrast, the woman who was the main subject of the PBS film was estranged from her strict religious adopted mother, but knew her birth mother's name and set out to find her as an adult. Yet when they finally met, the weight of their expectations of each other made the entire trip painful in the end.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:15 AM on September 16 [2 favorites]

Timely interview that fills in some of the blanks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdi6qmWyqjk
posted by smilefreely at 10:22 AM on September 17