Sister J reflects on the experiences of workers who have been marginalised, fired from their factory jobs. Lee Soojung’s documentary centres on Lim Jaechun or “Sister J”, as the director fondly calls this middle-aged worker. The film compassionately documents Lim Jaechun’s attempts to rebuild his life after being made redundant from his job of over three decades making guitars in a rural factory, capturing the great emotional toll of not only being laid off, but also the prolonged struggle for justice.

This quest sees him take to activism through art as he sings, writes, and performs to raise awareness of his situation. In his attempts to regain employment at the factory, Lim Jaechun begins living in a tent on the factory site over a period of almost ten years. Lee Soojung captures his shifting character through this process of creativity and protest, creating a portrait which speaks to a wider culture of labour activism.