In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. After spending years fighting to survive, investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented social justice movement. Nearly five decades later, Free Chol Soo Lee excavates this largely unknown yet essential … [Read More]
Category: Documentaries
Soup and Ideology: Yang Yonghi’s exploration of the Jeju 4:3 incident through her own family history
It must be a nightmare living with Yang Yonghi: you are constantly being filmed. Yang’s work focuses on her family history, and she has been collecting footage of her daily life since the mid ’90s. When the individual scenes are filmed – conversations, family meals, seemingly unremarkable incidents – the filming must seem without purpose. … [Read More]
Living Memories – the KCC’s summer season of documentaries
Continuing a summer tradition, the KCC’s film nights for late July and August focus on the documentay genre, in a season developed in collaboration with Birkbeck. Below is the official press release that tells you about the season. All of the films look well worth your time. We’ll be prioritising Im Heung-soon’s award-winning Factory Complex … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Factory Complex
Drawing parallels across several decades, Factory Complex engages with the struggles and suffering of women workers in various industries across Korea and beyond. Beginning with Korean textile workers in the 1960s before taking us inside the textile industry in Cambodia today, the film confronts audiences, drawing on archival footage and testimonies of those who were present in … [Read More]
Documentary screening: With or Without You
With or Without You follows the lives of Magg-i and Chun-hee, both widows of the same man. After their husband has passed, the two elderly women continue to share the same house and a tender relationship blessed by moments of wit and humour. The debut documentary of Park Hyuck-jee, shot intermittently over several years, depicts the … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Soup and Ideology
After suffering an aneurysm, Yang Yonghi’s mother starts revealing tragic memories of her fleeing Korea during the Jeju incident in 1948. The Japanese-born filmmaker begins to piece together her present and her mother’s past, whom she visits in Osaka every month with her Japanese fiancé. They bond through cooking and tradition, despite their ideological differences … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Jang Yunmi’s Under Construction
Jang Yunmi’s award-winning first feature reflects on the routine of construction worker Sudeok. From a captivating, careful look, as he manufactures reinforcement bars, the film gradually uncovers the physical, emotional and mental impact of his forty-year career in construction. Jang’s compositions, as she delicately interlaces their discussions with her footage, explore the boundaries between the … [Read More]
Shadow Flowers screens at Bertha Dochouse
Revealing a rarely discussed but strongly enforced law in South Korea, Shadow Flowers follows Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean woman, who finds herself trapped in South Korea, from where it is illegal to cross to the North. Desperate to return to her family and loved ones, Kim tried to smuggle herself out and even sought … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Chronicling London Korean Hankyoreh School
We are London Korean Hankyoreh School that started in New Malden in 2014 and the school was created to educate the second generation of Koreans. You may not have heard of our school, but we have been working hard to educate the second generation of Koreans every Saturday at a church located in the heart … [Read More]
Free Chol Soo Lee screens at Sundance Film Fest
In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. After spending years fighting to survive, investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented social justice movement. Free Chol Soo Lee gives voice to a hidden history to ask … [Read More]
Modern Korea Documentary: K-pop Genesis | K pop 창세기
Through this documentary, we review the history of Korean pop music in the 1980s, along with the stories of the teen musicians, who first experienced the changes in the 1990s when ‘music’ was changed to ‘music industry’. In the 1980s, the Korean music industry had a pattern of overworking musicians, and when profits were made … [Read More]
Modern Korea Documentary: The Age of Beasts
The Age of Beasts, a compilation documentary by Jeong Jae-eun, is part of the series Modern Korea 2 produced by Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). The programme traces the long struggle for women’s rights, from challenges to the misogynistic legislative system in the late 1980s to first-ever court case against sexual harassment and the enactment of … [Read More]
Modern Korean history documentary double bill at the KCC
Korean Film Nights presents four episodes of the television documentary series Modern Korea 2, produced by the KBS television channel. Each episode uses footage selected from the vast KBS archives to create compilation narratives that look back at the social, political, and cultural themes that have marked Korea’s history over the decades. The footage and … [Read More]
Korean Film Nights: In Transit
In a special collaboration with Bertha DocHouse and Birkbeck University, the KCCUK presents a journey into contemporary Korean documentary. Two of the screenings are online (free) and two at the Bertha Dochouse in Brunswick Square. We’re particularly looking forward to the opportunity of seeing the second instalment of Kim Soyoung’s Exile trilogy, having caught the … [Read More]
Dan Gordon’s North Korean documentaries now available on Vimeo
If you think that progressing beyond the group stages of the Euros is worth celebrating, maybe you’re right. But the success of the North Korean football team in the 1966 World Cup, in which they reached the quarter finals, was a much bigger achievement. They were the first Asian team to have proceeded beyond the … [Read More]
Assassins: the story of Kim Jong Nam’s murder
Thanks to Jason Verney for drawing our attention to this one. Available on demand / online for an unknown length of time, a documentary about the assassination of Kim Jong Nam. Details of where you can rent it can be found on the film’s website, www.assassins-film.co.uk Assassins Dir: Ryan White (2020, 1h 44m) Available online … [Read More]