{"id":1129,"date":"2019-11-26T12:45:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T05:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/site\/uncategorized\/remapping-south-korean-women-directors\/"},"modified":"2019-11-26T12:45:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T05:45:03","slug":"remapping-south-korean-women-directors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/program-highlight\/remapping-south-korean-women-directors\/","title":{"rendered":"Remapping South Korean Women Directors"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korean cinema has been lively discussed throughout the world ever since Bong Joon-ho’s success at Cannes Film Festival this year. For filmgoers, South Korean cinema has increasingly offered new characteristics to the world cinema long before Parasite<\/em><\/a> (2019). <\/span>Names like Kim Ki-duk, Hong Sang-soo, or Park Chan-wook are certainly familiar for filmmakers who follow South Korean cinema. However, those names suggest that South Korean film industry is still dominated by male directors, then, where are the females?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the mid of 2019, a movement called Sending My Spirit<\/em> emerged in South Korea. As reported by BBC<\/a>, the movement encourages people to buy tickets for films that stars a woman as the protagonist. By buying the tickets, the audiences are automatically supporting female directors to keep producing films about women, even though they did not physically attend the screenings. This effort is expected to help such films to survive and succeed at the box office. The movement was initiated at Seoul Women’s University for the sake of diversity in South Korean film industry.<\/p>\n

Women’s voices are not well represented in South Korean film industry. A report by Korean Film Council (KOFIC), which was published by BBC,<\/a> between 2014 and 2018, shows a total of 8.5 percent enhancement of female filmmakers, and 31.2 percent for films with female protagonists. However, they did not record the number of camerawomen throughout 2018. Last year, KOFIC established the Fair Environment Center to influence gender balance policies in the film industry. They provided 1.66 billion won for projects to overcome discrimination and sexual violence in film industry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The domination of men in film industry is not only happening in South Korea. This phenomenon can be found in almost every country in the world. The backdrop of this phenomenon certainly requires another discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Focus on South Korea<\/span>: Remapping South Korean Women Directors<\/a> is a collaborative program between Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) 2019 and Seoul Independent Documentary Film Festival (SIDOF) to present the works of female directors from South Korea. This program was designed to enrich South Korean film industry that has been dominated only by male directors. However, this program will not dissect the inequality between female and male directors. Are female directors capable in portraying a protagonist as an empowering and progressive character? Furthermore, this program is actually intended to invite the audience to observe the characters in films directed by female directors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two out of six films in this program will let the audiences witness the dispute between South Korea and Japan in two different periods. If East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front<\/em> (Kim Mirye, 2019) neatly tells its story in a series of archives and interviews, Heart of Snow: Afterlife<\/em> (Kim So-Young, 2018) rather presents its story calmly and poetically.<\/p>\n

East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front<\/span><\/i><\/a> (Kim Mirye, 2019) <\/span>depicts the bombing of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo by the Anti-Japanese Armed Front from East Asia on August 30, 1974. The company was bombed because it supplies military weapons for the United States during the Vietnam War. Following the Mitsubishi bombing, a series of Japanese companies were also attacked by the group. 40 years after, the filmmaker visited Japan to trace their thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Heart of Snow: afterlife <\/span><\/i><\/a>(Kim So-Young, 2018) <\/span>tells the story of Korean genocide by Japanese soldiers in Vladivostok, Russia, in 1920. At that time, they also executed revolutionary figures, such as Kim Afanasi and Alexandra Petrovna Kim before the forced migration in 1937.<\/span><\/p>\n

Four other films highlight the case of identity. These films tend to explore personal stories, even though they essentially raise general issues. Some of the stories were derived from the environment and personal experience of the filmmakers. In <\/span>Optigraph<\/span><\/i><\/a> (Lee Wonwoo, 2017), the subject \u2013 director of the film, Wonwoo, who has been living for a long time in the United States tries to trace the historical events in his hometown after his grandfather’s death. He was given a task by his grandfather to write an autobiography of him. Wonwoo remembers his grandfather as a simple and kind old man yet at the same time he knows that his grandfather has ever worked as the head of the security department at the beginning of the Korean War.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Strangers<\/em><\/a> (Sohee Myoung, 2018) observes a mother-daughter relationship. Myoung, the director, often has nightmares during fall. Thus, she decides to return to his changing hometown, Chuncheon, in order to remove the nightmare. She visits her hardworking mother. Then, she realizes how confusing their relationship is. She captures family portraits in a slowly disappearing space and memories. Are humans really meant to hate and be hurt by each other?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Unseen Children<\/em><\/a> (Aori, 2018) portrays North Korean diaspora through the experiences of teenagers in escaping the country. Sweet Golden Kiwi <\/em><\/a>(Kyuri Jeon, 2018) records the journey of two South Korean female immigrants of different generations who work on a kiwi plantation in New Zealand. The film tells the story of the filmmaker\u2019s aunt who has been working in a kiwi packing house for 30 years and a young woman who stays by relying on work and vacation visas. The premise raises a question on how migration relates to an escape and hopes. Jeon visualizes how individual lives are connected and influenced by personal and social reality, as well as the diversity of culture.<\/p>\n

The variety of characters presented in the six films discloses the important position of a female director in narrating woman’s stories. Female directors should provide more space for a woman to speak out and be heard. Moreover, they also need to keep exploring the complexity of female characters. Thus, female characters will no longer be seen in black and white. Typically, female protagonist is described as a tolerant individual, while female antagonist tends to be portrayed as a hater. However, female characters should essentially present women from the perspective of reality since they must have different and unique experiences and struggles in dealing with cultural and structural boundaries.<\/p>\n

Focus on South Korea: Remapping South Korean Women Directors<\/span><\/a> can be enjoyed on December 2nd-6th, 2019<\/a> at Taman Budaya Yogyakarta and IFI-LIP Yogyakarta.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korean cinema has been lively discussed throughout the world ever since Bong Joon-ho’s success at Cannes Film Festival this year. For filmgoers, South Korean cinema has increasingly offered new characteristics to the world cinema long before Parasite (2019). Names like Kim Ki-duk, Hong Sang-soo, or Park Chan-wook are certainly familiar for filmmakers who follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"edition":[64],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-program-highlight","edition-ffd-2019-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffd.or.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/edition?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}