Yumi Joung graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and attended KAFA (Korean Academy of Film Arts) for animation directing. She put herself on the map when her short film ‘Dust Kid' was screened at Cannes' Directors Fortnight. Since then she has won the Grand Prix at Animafest Zagreb. After ‘Math Test' (2010), ‘Love Games' (2013), ‘House of Existence' (2022) ‘Circle' was her fourth film to be selected for the Berlinale Shorts. With her work being selected for many leading (animation) film festivals such as NAMES she is one of the leading Korean animation directors. She is also an accomplished writer and illustrator. Both with ‘Dust Kid' (2014) and ‘My Little Doll's House (2015) she won the Bologna Ragazzi Award, an international award for picture books targeting a young audience, .
With ‘Circle', Joung Yumi again delivers a well received short animated film, once again proving why she is one of Korea's foremost animation directors. Her animated short premiered at the 2024 Berlinale and has since been selected for numerous other festivals such as Vienna Shorts and Annecy.
“Circle” is screening at Vienna Shorts
A girl finds a stick and uses it to draw a circle on the ground. One by one, passerbys get attracted to the circle, they step into it and, while finding ways to be comfortable, stay within its boundaries. Then the girl returns, and erases the circle after which the crowd dissipates one by one.
At first sight, ‘Circle' comes across as a straightforward film, set in a single location and featuring one (main) action. However, looks can be deceiving. While there are some clues about the story's location, such as the outfits the characters and city sounds, Joung Yumi uses an empty white space as a background. As a result, the story can be set in just about any place. This ambiguity is enforced when taking a closer look at the circle itself is. It is drawn with a stick so it should be a circle in a loose underground, however the sound more closely resembles it being drawn in chalk. All signals for the audience that there is more than what meets the eye.
The same complexity applies to the story. Joung Yumi's work is overall more idea-driven than story-driven and ‘Circle' is no exception. The simple main action of a girl drawing a circle on the ground and people gathering in it stands for much more. What exactly is open for interpretation. It can be as simple as envisioning the way people act when waiting together in a tight space such as a bus stop or standing in an elevator. But on a more abstract level, it can be seen as a metaphor for what happens when somebody suggests an idea to a group or for the (unconscious) need to conform to society. The latter seems the most obvious, partly due to the lack of interaction between the characters. Another indication for this interpretation are the young skateboarder and the child who are less eager to get in line, suggesting that a person's urge to be part of a group or to remain anonymous increases with age.
‘Circle' is a 2D, hand drawn animated film and Joung Yumi designed it in her characteristic style of delicate, detailed b&W drawings. The characters look realistic and this is empasised by their behaviour. On top of that she uses an almost theatrical approach to filmmaking: the film consists of a single shot, it shows a third person perspective and uses a static “camera”. The sound design is lean and to the point. There is no music only the noises made by the characters, such as the folding of a newspaper or eating a sandwich, and those in the background.
With ‘Circle', Joung Yumi has created a beautiful hand drawn animated short that is deceivingly simple yet pushes its audience to reflect on their interactions in society.
