9th October – SOAS University of London On the Way to South Korea (남으로 가는 길) Dir Kim Sang-rae, 2025 Khalili Lecture Theatre – Lower Ground Floor of the Main Building 6.00pm to 9.30pm | Register here We will be hearing from film directors who document the heroic stories of escapes from North Korea, together … [Read More]
Category: Documentaries
Lingering Fragments season: Women’s Oral Histories
This programme brings together two films that speak from vastly different moments in Korea’s feminist and queer history yet are bound by a shared insistence: to speak, to witness, and to survive. In Lesbian Censorship in School 1 (2005), director Lee Young offers a raw, first-person account of teenage queerness and institutional repression. Told through … [Read More]
Korean War Commemorative Screening: Forbidden Fatherland
Forbidden Fatherland focuses on listening to memories, pain, and the lived experiences of those forced to leave their families behind. It gives voice to those who grew up with absent relatives, to families marked by the trauma of displacement, and to the enduring sense of longing that persists 75 years later. The filmmaker, Kim Lyang, is … [Read More]
Jason Verney’s SEWOL: Sealed Eternally With Our Love screens at Kingston Int’l Film Fest
Three years after his short film Reparation screened at the Kingston International Film Festival, Jason Verney’s debut feature film will be at this year’s festival. Having been on the ‘frontline’ as an activist for the Sewol Ferry cause since that tragedy in 2014 and having visited Korea on many occasions over the last decade, film … [Read More]
Ilrhan Kim’s “Edhi Alice” closes 2025 Queer East festival
In Edhi Alice (에디 앨리스, 2024), director and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogates how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved. The subject of the documentary is Edhi, who works as a counsellor for LGBTQ+ teens in Seoul, and has decided to undertake gender reassignment surgery. Edhi’s story intertwines … [Read More]
Documentary screening: K-Family Affairs
The recent political history of South Korea is interwoven with the family life of filmmaker Arum Nam, whose parents are part of the proud 386 generation, which played a significant role in achieving democratisation. Eager to pass on a better world to their children, Arum’s father became a public servant, and her mother a feminist … [Read More]
Two Koryo Saram documentary screenings
In collaboration with Misha Zakharov, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick and curator at Screening Rights Film Festival, and Goethe-Institut UK, the London Migration Film Festival is hosting a special event on Koryo Saram (or Koryoin), the (post-)Soviet Koreans. In 1937, Koryo Saram were forcibly displaced from the Far East of Soviet Russia to Central … [Read More]
Documentary screening: The Last of the Sea Women
In The Last of the Sea Women, an extraordinary band of feisty grandmother warriors wage a spirited battle against vast oceanic threats. Often called real-life mermaids, the haenyeo divers of South Korea’s Jeju Island are renowned for centuries of diving to the ocean floor – without oxygen – to harvest seafood for their livelihood. Today, … [Read More]
Short film screenings: Chorus, + Q&A
A programme of six short films inspired by the legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. This presentation starts with Cha’s Vidéoème before leading into a selection of contemporary artists’ films, placing them in dialogue while celebrating a diversity of voices. Though the architecture of the programme is conceptually framed as a palindrome in three dialectic … [Read More]
Screening: Voices of the Silenced (UK Premiere)
This film delves into the historical experiences of Park Soo-nam, born in colonial-era Japan, retracing the journey and the history of Zainichi Koreans in Japan. Through the lens of two 16mm documentary films shot since 1985 and the restoration of unreleased footage, spanning 100,000 feet, it resurrects the testimonies of witnesses. The film raises questions … [Read More]
Screening: Love Death Dog + Baek-gu (UK Premieres)
Love Death Dog | 러브 데스 도그 Directed by Gwon Dong-hyun and Kwon Sea-jung 19 min | 2023 | Korea | colour and b&w Korean with Eng Subs | Print source: Gwon Dong-hyun, Kwon Sea-jung Gwon Dong-hyun and Kwon Sea-jung have been collaborating on a long-term research project titled Love Death Dog City since 2020, … [Read More]
Activism and Post-Activism: Korean Documentary Cinema: 1981-2022, A lecture by Prof. Kim Jihoon
This lecture presents an overview of Activism and Post-Activism: Korean Documentary Cinema: 1981-2022 (Oxford University Press, 2024), the first-ever English-language monograph on Korean non-fiction film and video practices in the non-governmental and non-corporate sectors from their foundational period (early 1980s) to the present. Making tripartite connections between the socio-political history of Korea (from the 1980s … [Read More]
Refugee Week screening: ‘Little Pyongyang’
Join Connect: North Korea for a fundraiser screening of the award-winning short film, ‘Little Pyongyang,’ followed by a Q&A session in conversation with the film’s director Roxy Rezvany, and members of the North Korean community. We will be discussing what has changed for the community since the film’s original release, the limits which the North … [Read More]
Korean Documentary season at Sheffield’s Showroom Cinema
This season focuses on bringing contemporary Korean documentary to Sheffield and showing the breadth of films that are emerging in the Korean documentary market. Experience modern Korea through the lens of these captivating stories that explore diverse topics from cats to football, from North Korean politics to LGBTQ+ parenting. From the streets of Seoul to the forgotten countryside, each documentary … [Read More]
Beyond Utopia – theatrical release
A suspenseful look at the lengths people will go to gain freedom, Beyond Utopia follows various individuals as they attempt to flee North Korea, one of the most oppressive places on Earth, a land they grew up believing was a paradise. At the film’s core are a mother desperate to reunite with the child she … [Read More]
Healing Hearts: The stories and voices of North Korean refugees
Three North Korean refugees will share their experiences in North and South Korea through different voices. Co-founder of Freedom Speakers International will share his experiences meeting with more than 500 North Koreans refugees and why North Korean refugees speak out. After the forum, attendees will also be invited to watch “You Don’t Know,” a documentary … [Read More]