20 Documentaries you shouldn’t miss at the 13th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (Part 1)

By Asian Film Festival on September 3, 2021 • ( 2 Comments )

These are twenty documentaries you shouldn’t miss at the 13th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival which will take from September 9th – 16th, 2021 in Goyang City and Paju City, Gyeongii Province, Korea.

To see the second part of this article GO HERE
You can also see the short films we recommend GO HERE

– Selected Films –

**A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces** by Zhu Shengze – China, USA | 2021 – 87 minutes
**Section**: International Competition

A portrait of urban spaces along the Yangtze River in the city of Wuhan. An engaging communal stage on which people perform in various ways: some dancing, singing, swimming; some shoveling, welding, and hammering. An evolving landscape that is continuously sculpted by nature and dramatically altered by roaring machines and rising infrastructure. Where desires are planted. Where memories are buried. The lost place. (DMZDocs 2021)

Trailer:

**A Tale of Old Cities** by Jo Eunsung – Korea | 2021 – 82 minutes
**Section**: Korean Competition

Jung-gu, the old original downtown of the city of Incheon, is the place where the first port was opened to foreign trades during the Japanese colonial period, and it is also the starting point of the construction of modern buildings, old Japanese houses(so-called enemy’s house), railways, shipping, and airports. Currently, this area is also a place where the two concepts of development and reconstruction/regeneration are in sharp conflict. The film contains the story of those who pursue desirable regeneration, revolving around this neighborhood in Incheon. (DMZDocs 2021)

**After the Rain** by Fan Jian – China | 2021 – 104 minutes
**Section**: International Competition

After an earthquake razed a Chinese city to the ground in 2008, more than six thousand parents were encouraged to replace the children they lost and move on. After the Rain follows two of these families for over a decade. (DMZDocs 2021)

**Boundary: Flaming Feminist Action** by Yun Gahyun – Korea | 2021 – 102 minutes
**Section**: Korean Competition

After the Gangnam Station Toilet Murder Case in 2016, my friends and I started a new campaign by moving from the labor movement to the women’s movement. We make Flaming Feminist Action projects that promote feminist movements with women’s bodies and sexuality, such as “Liberation of armpit hairs” and “Liberation of nipples”. Four years after our feminist manifesto, we open the diary of those four years that were hot, bitter, and damp like a sweltering summer. (DMZDocs 2021)

**Burning Flower** by Won Ho-yeon – Korea | 2021 – 83 minutes
**Section**: Korean Competition

Lim Seonn-yeo, 68, has never left a deep mountain village in Samcheok, Gangwon Province. Her husband, the protector of the illiterate Seonn-yeo, passed away, leaving her a will to “learn to read and write.” She says that she has lived her life without any regrets because ignorant people have no dreams, but now she prepares for breaking up. She bids farewell to the cow she had been with all her life and to the house where she lived with her husband. (DMZDocs 2021)

**Coming to You** by Byun Gyuri – Korea | 2021 – 93 minutes
**Section**: Korean Docs Showcase

Firefighter Nabi one day hears her child Hangyeol coming out. “I want to have breasts removed.” Meanwhile, flight attendant and working mom Vivian weeps over Yejun’s letter that begins, “Mom, I’m gay.” Before the two mothers can fully understand their children’s identity, Hangyeol and Yejun begin to confide in the real problems they faced. Another new world of women who are mothers in their 50s who take up new challenges in the face of their children’s coming out. (DMZDocs 2021)

**Discrimination** by Kim Jiwoon, Kim Dohee – Korea | 2021 – 84 minutes
**Section**: Korea Competition

Since 2013, Japan has implemented the free high school policy. However, only 10 Chongryon Korean high schools are excluded from this policy. The reason is that there are suspicions that the grant for free education will be misused by Chochongryon and others. Five of these schools protested about this measure and filed a claim for damages against the government in 2013. After four years of hearings, the first trial decision was made on July 19, 2017, starting with the case of Hiroshima Chongryon Korean high school. (DMZDocs 2021)

**Double Layered Town / Making a Song to Replace Our Positions** by Komori Haruka, Seo Natsumi – Japan | 2019 – 79 minutes – **Section**: Asian Competition

Double layered town is a story by Seo Natsumi, planting seeds for new folktales born in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The town that once stood and the one built after the completion of land elevation work─four travelers who know neither head for Rikuzentakata in 2018, listen to what the local people have to say, hold repeated dialogues and recite stories. The travelers find their own speaking voice through cycles of listening, reporting, and retelling. This is a record of a site where a small “succession” is initiated, captured with a delicate touch by filmmaker Komori Haruka. (DMZDocs 2021)

**In the Sky Where Seasons Pass By** by Ko Hanbul – Korea | 2021 – 104 minutes
**Section**: Korean Competition

At Deoksan elementary school under Woelaksan (Mt.), there are 15 children who have been in the same class for 6 years. They don’t sit quietly in class like other school kids. After school, they gather at a hidden secret spot by the river, and they whisper, saying that the homeroom teacher is an adult who can’t even control his emotions. Yoonjae, a new teacher who imagined that children would sit quietly in the classroom, is bewildered when he sees the children different from what he expected. The changing seasons with the children, and what will their sky be filled with? (DMZDocs 2021)

**Keep Running** by Sun Getting – China | 2021 – 90 minutes
**Section**: International Competition

In the city of GenHe, the coldest part of China, a team of teenagers from underprivileged backgrounds run every day under extremely harsh circumstances. The sports school has provided them with something they couldn’t get from their families: joy and hope for a better life. A heart-warming documentary devoted to the vivid, optimistic, and positive spirit of youth, introducing a group of ordinary characters and guiding us through a stunning natural landscape. (DMZDocs 2021)

For more information please visit: https://dmzdocs.com/eng

About the festival:
DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) is a Korean film festival for documentaries, jointly presented by Paju and Goyang in Gyeonggi Province. The 13th DMZ Docs will take place on 9th-16th September 2021. It is the largest festival of its kind in Asia, aiming to introduce outstanding documentaries as well as to support talented filmmakers and promising projects to be discovered by a wider audience.