Production
A young North Korean refugee fights to rebuild her life in fast-paced, hyper-modern South Korea, forcing her to confront the price of freedom and the past she left behind.
Woman’s body bleeds regardless of her will. Through untold ages, this bleeding has been the symbol of secret, mystery, fervor and disavowal. The process of bleeding which has been taken care of with any absorbent materials, however, has undergone changes through critical moments of human history. NPR, the public channel in USA declared the year 2015 as ‘The Year of the Period,’ and ‘Free Bleeding Movement’ arose also in Korea. Numerous startup companies launched products for “New Bleeding.” Over a million viewers are visiting pages of sanitary-products-reviewing youtuber, and politicians start to talk about the blood. The walls of information collapse, and women choose their own way of “how to bleed.”
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.
Chandigarh stands as an anomaly amongst the chaotic Indian landscape. Designed by Le Corbusier in 1964 as a utopian vision of what modern independent India could be, his obsession with straight lines and ‘form follows function’ is evident in the urban design of the city. In 2020, the director visits his parents in his hometown of Chandigarh trying to resolve an ongoing disagreement over his life choices. Over this time spent at home where moments of gentle affection seem to be punctuated by a total communication breakdown, the filmmaker starts to suspect that the city might have a more insidious role to play in this unravelling situation. As he spends time within the grid of the house, the larger grid structures around him start becoming apparent. Could it be possible that the design of this city suppresses individuality, which threatens its ideal of order and coherence?
German filmmaker Susanne, married to a Korean man named Kim Jeong Rae, turns the camera toward her own intercultural marriage and family with both humor and tenderness. Blending vérité and performance, the film dives into the beautiful mess of love, identity, and cultural collision. Becoming Kim asks: How do we stay true to ourselves—while learning to love another?
When an unplanned baby enters the lives of a conservative mother, neurodivergent daughter and detached gay son, the trio travels back in time through their diaries and family photos to mend ruptured bonds and prepare for a new cycle of motherhood.
A dying merman asks a friend to give his remains to his daughter, hiding amongst the humans. Tasked with this dangerous journey, the merman secretly heads to the land of humans. He is chased by a new civil servant recruit fueled by curiosity and hatred.
In the rural Liangshan Mountains, 14-year-old Qihuo and her friends embark on a road trip to find a skirt for her traditional menarche rite of passage.
From a cramped Mumbai storefront, Khatoon leads Mumbai's first women-led Islamic court. Amidst heated arguments and raw testimony, these female judges settle cases of domestic conflict, reclaiming religious law from male dominance to offer a new path toward grassroots justice.
The shy Kyu, adopted from South Korea, travels with his Dutch father Lenny, a non-conformist disruptor, to Marseille during the World Cup football of 1998, where the Netherlands will play against South Korea.
Sanyi lives in a typical apartment complex in Seoul. Tired of being bullied at school, she finds little support from her distant mother Soyoon and her father, Chao, who struggles to survive as a Chinese immigrant. To escape her reality, Sanyi secretly observes her neighbors’ lives through their windows. One day, she witnesses a shocking crime through the window of her only friend, Hajin. As Sanyi grows closer to Hajin and his enigmatic mother Yumi, she finds herself torn between love and fear for Yumi. Eventually, Sanyi must decide whether to leave with them for North Korea.
Moti Khan, a musically gifted child from the lower caste Muslim Manganiyars of the Thar Desert, is forced to sing and play music for their ancestral patrons in order to survive, even though he finds it humiliating. Sattar, his father, wants Moti to study and make a career outside music. But Moti aspires to be a successful singer so that he is treated respectfully. He leaves his village behind and sets out on a journey to discover his music.
Queer My Friends portrays a very important chapter of Kang-won’s life: his coming out as gay and the changes he goes through from the eyes of his best friend Ah-hyun. This 30s coming-of-age buddy film draws how these two from such different backgrounds grow up together by questioning, exploring, and, of course, fighting each other. While Kang-Won struggles to embrace his sexuality, nationality, and identity, Ah-hyun asks herself what it means to find oneself and accept others for who they really are.
A documentary that scientifically analyses and tracks down the route of the Sewol Ferry that sank on the 16th of April in 2014 using its AIS to discover the cause of the unconfirmed sinking.
In war-torn Ukraine, Yulin and Ki, a couple from Korea and Taiwan, embark on a journey to witness the birth of their surrogate baby. Amidst the chaos of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, they find themselves trapped in a hotel room with Anna, their illegally hired surrogate mother from Kyiv. As the situation escalates, they form an unexpected bond with Anna, and they try to bring her out of the country with themselves.
After learning of the untimely deaths of her father’s siblings, director Aishu asks her to help her translate the poems left behind by one uncle who achieved cult status posthumously. As they work together to break intergenerational silences and taboos, the old apartment expands, connecting them to the world outside.
A sequel to "Porosity Valley, Portable Holes" (2017), this piece expands upon the previous work through a fictionalized depiction of the migration of the migrant/mineral/data cluster known as Petra Genetrix. Juxtaposing refugee migration with digital migration, both of which characterize migration in the 21st century, the work creates a speculative space-time by interrogating the “ways of existence” and the “ways of representation” of the Yemeni refugees who recently arrived in South Korea. Reflected here is the state of affairs in which refugees are treated as a kind of malware or virus that threaten the immune system of the nation state.
After the wave of #MeToo movement stories from various circles, did sexual violence survivors return to their normal lives? Finding the new 'normal' is now in the hands of those individuals. Even though the cases were closed, their memories always take them back to the past. Blighted by violence, their bodies stiffen up even with little touches. From getting out of bed, taking a shower to leaving the house, everyday is a battle with themselves. While many survivors feel they're body still remain in the past, dance therapists, choreographers and feminist activists have gathered and plan a movement workshop for trauma recovery. They feel their fingertips again and they move their toes. They re-experience inhaling and exhaling in a safe place. To survive this moment, they move together, and they prepare themselves for a return to daily lives.
Ayoung Kim’s enchanting film Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix (2019) takes the viewer on a journey through hyperbolic mythology based on a fictional genderless mineral Petra Genetrix. Through this character, Kim explores the Mongolian animist belief that positions land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves at the center of their universe. By likening rocks and stones as the Earth’s memory storage vessel, the work illuminates the futurist potential of animism: “Quartz can be considered to be a type of natural computer since it absorbs and stores a large amount of energy“. The traditional spirituality oriented towards land or ancient animism reveals the potential equivalence between primeval objects and the futuristic memory sphere.
Peter, his wife Nyathon, and his children endure his political imprisonment, a near assassination, asylum, and his many foiled attempts for a fair and free election in the world's youngest country. A child soldier from South Sudan turned Harvard graduate and democracy activist, Peter is forced to reconcile his commitment to his young country versus his young family, to nonviolent means versus whatever it takes, and a self-defined identity versus an inherited one as protector and leader of his people. We witness the family's personal and intergenerational costs but also their resilience as Peter makes choices which ultimately leads to his incarceration as a criminal in the US.
