When their mother needs to leave in order to find their estranged father, seven-year-old Jin and her younger sister, Bin, are left to live with their Big Aunt for the summer. With only a small piggy bank and their mother’s promise to return when it is full, the two young girls are forced to acclimate to changes in their family life. Counting the days, and the coins, the two bright-eyed young girls eagerly anticipate their mother’s homecoming. But when the bank fills up, and with their mother still not back, Big Aunt decides that she can no longer tend to the children. Taken to live on their grandparent’s farm, it is here that Jin comes to learn the importance of family bonds in this beautiful, meditative, and thought-provoking second feature from So Yong Kim, the acclaimed director of IN BETWEEN DAYS. Variety’s Robert Koehler said of Kim’s film: “drawing out beautifully natural performances from her child actors, Kim once again has a distinct way of letting her camera observe her characters with kind thoughtfulness, allowing for a quiet mood to wash over the scenes.”
STATEMENT FROM DIRECTOR - SO YONG KIM
TREELESS MOUNTAIN is inspired by events from my early childhood in Pusan, Korea. My mother divorced our father and left us with our grandparents on a rice farm. She immigrated to America in order to find a better life for herself and to build a future for her children. At the time of these events we were too young to understand and our mother did not tell us what was happening. I began writing the film to search for certain lost memories from this period of my life and also as a letter to my mother.
As the story began to take shape, Jin, the main character, took on her own distinctive personality and blossomed. As the writing progressed, the story and the characters began to separate from actual events from my life. Jin's emotional and physical journey became the main force of the story. As in the case of the Aimie character in IN BETWEEN DAYS, I used my personal memories and experience as the starting point to develop Jin, and then allowed her to dictate her own journey.
TREELESS MOUNTAIN is a simple story about a six-year-old girl, Jin, and her journey to early maturity. Jin's sensitivity and the complexity of the emotions stem from her desire to have her family life back. She must let go of everything she has known in order to persevere. In this sense TREELESS MOUNTAIN is an intimate portrait of a young girl and a classic coming-of-age story. I wanted to tell the story of Jin in order to celebrate her resilience in life.
2nd Sep - Korean big hits SECRET REUNION and BESTSELLER have just confirmed for the 2010 London Korean Film Festival
26th Aug - Breaking news, the ICA has just signed on to be one of the key venues for this year's London Korean Film Festival!
26th Aug - We have five fantastic films already confirmed, BLADES OF BLOOD, 71- INTO THE FIRE, PAJU, HOUSEMAID and A LITTLE POND.
Keep an eye on this space for more updates about films being added!
