To delight these fresh summer evenings in London, the Korean Cultural Centre UK welcomes you back once again to Korean Film Nights, their year-round programme of film screenings and talks. Following on from 2021’s theme In Transit, which focused on the documentary in relation to marginalised communities, the new season Living Memories continue sto investigate the documentary form.
Selected by MA students from Birkbeck University and future festival curators Robyn Minshall, Amina Ferley Yael, Roberto Oggiano and Paula Maguire, Living Memories line-up draw together the untold, frequently overlooked, experiences of daily lives throughout Korea’s history. This selection focuses on one of the driving forces of documentary filmmaking, the urge to document and preserve stories, and brings the intimacies of relationships, trauma, and emotion to the forefront through the recollections of those who experienced extraordinary times. The patient unfolding of emories is shown through ordinary people going about their lives, as they recount their tales. The contrast between current daily life and their own memories contextualises the life stories and inserts them into Korea’s recent history.
Beginning the journey at Birkbeck Cinema, is Under Construction (Jang Yun-mi, 2018) a piece that follows the routine of construction worker Sudeok that gradually plunges into the physical, emotional and mental impact of his forty-year career, and the narrative progresses from an open exploration to an intimate portrait. This leads into the core section of this season, formed by Halmoni (Daniel Kim, 2017), Soup and Ideology (Yang Yonghi, 2021) and With or Without You (Park Hyuck-jee, 2015), which closes in on a personal level of lived experiences. These three films, screened at the Korean Cultural Centre, will focus on the legacies, loves and losses of elder women through the sharing of their memories with the filmmakers. In both Halmoni and Soup and Ideology, a further level of closeness is added due to the personal ties of the filmmaker to their subject, giving the audience even more of an insight into their lives than they otherwise would have been shown. With or Without You is more observant, showing us the strength of the bond between two women living together who, despite not being biologically related, reinvent the traditional meaning of family. The closing film, Factory Complex (Im Heung-soon, 2014), presents the stories of many who suffered in the textile and technology industry, bringing us full circle to the struggle of workers, as these women share similar experiences to those of the protagonist of Under Construction.
From this series of films emerges the undervalued labours of women and workers, whether physical or emotional, often ignored throughout history. It is through their memories and their day-to-day lives that we can discover and rebuild a collective memory. Their experiences have an impact, their testimonies are Living Memories that we wish to share and preserve.
