Lisa is adopted from Korea. Like most people, she wonders about her background, especially when she herself has children as an adult. It is when she discovers that she has a document containing the names of her biological parents, and another that says she is an orphan and without a background, that Lisa gets the first hint that something is not right with her own adoption. She begins to dig deeper into her own history and finds that it is much more complicated than the one she grew up with. The search takes her back to Korea and the orphanage. The image of adoption as a good deed that gives parents to orphaned children slowly begins to crumble.

Palimpsest is a critical confrontation with a corrupt adoption industry that is depicted through a difficult-to-navigate and at times tumultuous search for roots, and the reflections and heavy memories that are brought to life in the process.