Liz Sargent is a Korean American Adoptee whose award-winning work explores themes of adoption, disability, and family. As a Writer/Director, she incorporates her background as a choreographer into visual storytelling that channels complex human emotions that are an extension of her experience as the middle child of eleven and recognizes her intersectional identity as an adult.

TAKE ME HOME captures a moment of terror for people who worry about how their lives will change without a plan for their siblings who cannot live on their own. As we reenter the fast competitive world, priorities are reconsidered. I think most about the youngest sibling with a Cognitive/Developmental Disability (I/DD) and how the world isn’t made for her.

In this story, Anna must find a way to communicate her self-agency while her sister overhauls her home. Both sisters are learning how to mourn and change and compromise. And the only way they can move forward is if they can understand each other, but Anna’s verbal skills are not fully developed. How can they transcend language? So many people’s lives are altered the moment a parent dies, but even more so when they inherit their sibling’s needs. It is a sudden learning curve to figure out the bureaucracy for a disabled sibling. The best practice is to honor and empower self-direction, but how do we weigh each person's independence? Anna wants her own home but in reality there is a 15K+ wait for Assisted Living in most states and the cost is exorbitant. The film does not solve this problem, but gets the characters through the overwhelming in-between moment, with the hope that they can find a way to co-exist as independent adults. All actors are unique, but for this film, I considered each performer's strengths and what a safe environment feels like from their perspective. This information was the guide to the schedule, lighting and time we allow to find authentic moments. The actors improvised within the scene's structure to help hit the objective organically.

This film is about two Asian Adoptees but it is not heavy-handed with adoptee trauma; rather it accepts the adopted family as its own unique balancing act. The family responsibilities are overwhelming and unique but it is a universal story. In the end, we are left with a sense of hope. Anna understands how to share, how to remember, and how to move forward. It is what we all strive for in intense moments of change. The dinky fireworks reflect forgotten America, and the flower seeds reference a regrowth, a rebirth.