Documentary Archives - London Korean Film Festival

The Meryl Streep Project

admin — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 10:38:20 +0000

Creator Park Hyo-sun is both a long-time fan of American actress Meryl Streep as well as a young female film director in the Korean movie industry. As the title might suggest, this documentary–which was eight years in the making–chronicles a fan’s longing to meet the actress she looks up to but is also a collection of stories about the anxieties and uncertainties faced by young women in Korean society. “Why do I like you so much, and why is it that I get such comfort from your films?” These questions, which are asked sometimes in jest and sometimes more seriously, necessarily encourage viewers to think about their own place and the world through which they are walking in life. Not as a fangirl but as a feminist, the director invites conversation with other feminists who are endlessly giving inspiration and asking thought-provoking questions. The film cultivates portraits of women, including the director, who are completing the same difficult journey together.

Son Si-nae

The post The Meryl Streep Project appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Forbidden Fatherland

admin — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 13:55:28 +0000

Director Kim Lyang follows her father after his Parkinson’s diagnosis to better understand him and his past. At the outbreak of the Korean War, he was forced to flee his home and leave his family behind in the North. Through conversations, Kim asks him about his experiences during the war, his family, and his seaside hometown.

As her journey unfolds, she meets others from her father’s village and their families, asking how they grew up, what they remember, and what they lost when they left. She discovers stories that mirror her father’s. She asks them how they remember their hometown and what they may miss.

Forbidden Fatherland explores the enduring impact of forced diaspora. Life continues, families grow, but the longing to see the street where one grew up never fully fades. How can generations begin to heal? Can divided families ever be reunited? Kim Lyang remains hopeful—hopeful for the day she can see her father’s hometown.

The post Forbidden Fatherland appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Sandstorm

admin — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 10:28:04 +0000

Sandstorm is a compelling documentary following the Kolping Women’s Ssireum Team, pioneers in Korean women’s wrestling—a sport officially recognised by the Korean Ssireum Association in 1999 and gaining prominence a decade later when Im Su-jeong won the championship. Beginning in 2017, the film tracks five wrestlers—Choi Hee-hwa, Kim Da-hye, Yang Yoon-seo, Song Song-hwa, and Im Su-jeong—over five years, showcasing their matches, triumphs, and challenges. Through intense training sessions and personal moments, Sandstorm explores the intersection of sport and gender, revealing how these women challenge traditional norms and support one another.

The post Sandstorm appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Voices of the Silenced

admin — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 13:20:59 +0000

This film delves into the historical experiences of Park Soo-nam, born in colonial-era Japan, retracing the journey and the history of ZainichiーKorean in Japan. Through the lens of two 16mm documentary films shot since 1985 and the restoration of unreleased footage, spanning 100,000 feet, it resurrects the testimonies of witnesses. The film raises questions for audiences, probing what was lost through colonisation and war, and serves as a record of the struggle to reclaim those losses.

Shedding light from the past to the present, the film challenges us to ponder the essence of documentary filmmaking. It raises inquiries about the significance of reclaiming what was lost in the face of historical injustices.

This film is a collaborative effort between the director, Park Soo-nam, who has now lost her eyesight, and her daughter and co-director, Park Maeui.

The post Voices of the Silenced appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

I Am More

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 06:02:27 +0000

A promising ballerina, More gave up the dream and has been working as a drag queen artist for 20 years. One day, John Cameron Mitchell, in Seoul for a run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, catches More’s show. Soon after More is invited to perform in New York for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Uprising.

In this, his third documentary film, Lee Il-ha appears to have met a protagonist who fully resonates with his own style: Mo Jimin, queer drag artist who majored in ballet at art school. I Am More is as much Mo Jimin’s film as it is Lee Il-ha’s. The stage name More, or ‘Mo-uh (毛魚)’, meaning ‘hairy fish’, is also the title of Mo Jimin’s essay collection published at the beginning of this year. Lee Il-ha has consistently focused his interest on those who have been captured by the idea of ‘life as a stage’. The stage is a boxing ring (A Crybaby Boxing Club, 2014), as well as a road upon which ‘counter’-protest against peddlers of hate speech unfolds (Counters, 2017). Unbound by the conventions of documentary-based objectivity, Lee Il-ha’s style maximises the fantastical nature of the concept of ‘life as a stage’ that has captured I Am More’s protagonist.

Yoo Un-seong

The post I Am More appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Melting Icecream

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 05:56:07 +0000

Melting Icecream is assumed to be a record of the 1990s democratisation movement, but the work actually began with the discovery of severely flood-damaged film. Although the work started out as a documentation of the film’s restoration process, the end product is anything but a simple record. Mixed in amongst the portrayal of the restoration process are interviews with photographers part of the so-called ‘democracy generation’; archive footage of conflict scenes in the 2000s over temporary working conditions and struggles over migrant workers; scenic shots, either devoid of people or where the individual’s identity is not revealed; videos taken beside statues with unseen faces.

The feature-length debut of photographer and art director Hong Jinhwon throws the traditional sense of documentary into disarray with his unique audio-visual arrangement.

Yoo Un-seong

The post Melting Icecream appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

The 2nd Repatriation

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 05:48:30 +0000

Kim Dongwon is an unusual documentarist, who despite his awareness of the urgency of a given situation, rarely responds to it right away. He has often been classed as an ‘activist’, but the way in which he manifests as an artist is considerably slow and cautious. Two decades on, The 2nd Repatriation is the sequel to his 2003 film Repatriation, which examined the lives of long-term unconverted political prisoners repatriated to North Korea. In the follow-up, Kim Dongwon focuses instead on the long-term prisoners who, though they ‘converted’ through coercion, still hope for repatriation to North Korea; in particular, a character by the name of Kim Youngshik. However, as much as the documentary is about Kim Youngshik and the ‘converted’ long term political prisoners, it is also about Kim Dongwon himself. Here we come face to face with those mighty individuals who tell eloquently of how, for them, the 20th-century was never over, and was drawn to a halt by force, in danger of being buried entirely.

Yoo Un-seong

The post The 2nd Repatriation appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Dear Kimsisters in 1959

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 19:47:18 +0000

During the Cold War, The Kim Sisters went to America to make it as a pop group. They soaked in all the Asia-related images and flaunted their abilities. Director Jeon Chae-lin, who is currently studying abroad, searches out the history of other Asian women of 1959, and connects the Kim Sisters to her own story. Spanning across language and power, history and culture, she lifts up the voices of Asian women that have been silenced by men and western-centred power.

The post Dear Kimsisters in 1959 appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Dear Chaemin

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 19:33:06 +0000

In the midst of COVID-19 travel restrictions, director Bae Cyan sends a series of video letters to her younger sibling in Seoul from the Hague. Do we want a return to the ‘old normal’? The auto-fiction documentary juxtaposes contact tracing, biopolitics and crowd control within the Korean and Dutch contexts, and examines the process by which country-wide and individual surveillance practices contribute to the stigmatisation of and violence against queer communities in Seoul and Asian communities in Europe. Bae Cyan creates an archive of the early stages of the pandemic and her use of images, sound and voice is striking.

The post Dear Chaemin appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Coming to you

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 19:15:17 +0000

Since early age, Hangyeol has experienced gender dysphoria. They share this with their firefighter mother, but are disappointed by her response. Yejun’s mum is a flight attendant for an international airline, and considers herself in the know when it comes to gender-related issues, but when her son comes out as gay, she breaks out in sobs. These two mothers, faced with the unexpected coming-out of their children, come head to head with this new identity of parent of a queer child.

Hangyeol and Yejun’s mothers become members of the ‘Queer Children’s Parents Club’, and give themselves new names: ‘Nabi’ and ‘Vivian’. Recording the journey to change that began here, Coming to You is a documentary shot through a supportive gaze. In 2016 director Byun Gyu-ri – member of PINKS, a group that produces films for the culture and rights of sexual minorities – made a promotional video for the Queer Children’s Parents Club, of which Coming to You was an outcome.

The post Coming to you appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.