Filmmaker Hyun kyung Kim grew up with the inherited burden of the Korean War. Her mother compulsively fills the house with items she finds on the streets of Seoul while her father devours books about the conflict. When she is grown, the filmmaker’s encounter with a North Korean defector mirrors the story of her grandfather, who stayed in the North when the country became divided, never to be seen again by his family. DEFECTORS confronts the impact of the war on generations of the family.