Growing up a daughter of Korean immigrants who ran a liquor store in South Los Angeles, Director So Yun Um has never seen eye-to-eye with her father on anything—especially not her career choices. Although his liquor store has provided her financial stability to dream big, there is tension between father and daughter, including around the complicated past their Korean culture and store have within the Black community.

Danny Park, in contrast, is drawn back toward home. In the wake of his father’s passing, he quits his dream job at Nike and returns to Los Angeles to help his mother run the family store on Skid Row, where he dreams of uniting the Black and Korean communities at his store.

Liquor Store Dreams is a portrait of two second-generation Korean Americans trying to create their own future by honoring, understanding, and healing their parents’ past.

Liquor Store Dreams is a participant of Project: Hatched 2023.