Free Thought. Documentary Cinema Program

Director: SEUNG-JUN YI
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
2019, 109'

Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean housewife, was forced to come to South Korea and became its citizen against her will. She tried to smuggle herself out and even sought political asylum at the Vietnamese Embassy but all in vain. As her seven years of struggle to go back to her family in North Korea continues, the political absurdity hinders her journey back to her loved ones. The life of her family in the North goes on in emptiness, and she fears that she might become someone, like a shadow, who exists only in the fading memory of her family.

Seung-Jun Yi was born in 1971 in Busan. He studied East Asian history at university and has been working as a documentary director/producer since 1999. His work focuses on the life of unseen minorities, which has informed his signature style of filmmaking. His second feature «Planet of Snail»(2011) has traveled the world and won many awards such as IDFA and Silverdocs.