We selected a list of 15 Documentaries you cannot miss at the 9th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival 2017 that is taking place from September 21st – 28th, in Gyeonggi Province, Paju and Goyang.

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail by Steve James – US | 2016 – 90 min.
Non-Competition | Global Vision

This film tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the family to defend themselves—and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community—over the course of a five-year legal battle.

Schedule:
September 25th Monday – Megabox Baekseok 7 – 15:30 pm

Trailer:

Adriana’s Pact by Lissette Orozco – Chile | 2017 – 94 min.
Competition | International Competition

When I was a child I had an idol: My aunt Adriana. My perception about her has fell apart when I found out that she worked for Pinochet. I have privileged access and I’ll face my aunt to know the dark secrets of my country’s history.

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 3 – 13:00 pm
September 26th Tuesday – Megabox Pajubookcity 6 – 11:00 am

Trailer:

Beak-gu by Kim Bo-ram – South Korea | 2017 – 83 min.
Non-Competition | Korean Docs Showcase

An aged dog lives in an empty lot in the secluded town. The camera approaches the people around and ask them ´who the dog is,`. The residents start sharing their own observations and memories of the dog. Through the pieces of stories, certain clues to the life each person has lived also start being revealed.

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Pajubookcity 3 – 14:20 pm

Counters by Lee-Il-ha – South Korea | 2017 – 96 min.
Competition | International Competition

Since 2013, Japan’s extreme-right racist group has organized more than 1000 hate speeches around the nation. A schoolteacher, a deliveryman, a politician, an architect, and other ordinary citizens form a coalition to ‘counter’ the racist group, calling for the awakening of Japanese conscience. Spearheading the civic group, our problematic protagonist Takahashi, a former mid-level Yakuza boss is reborn, determined to fight against racism and discrimination.

Schedule:
September 23rd Saturday – Megabox Baekseok 2 – 19:30 pm
September 25th Monday Megabox Pajubookcity 1 – 14:30 pm

Exile by Rithy Panh – France, Cambodia | 2017 – 77 min.
Non-Competition | Global Vision

It all starts with exile, and nothing is anything without it. Exile is a meditation on absence; on inner solitude, geography, politics. Exile is also an attempt at elucidation on the part of a boy who lived in Democratic Kampuchea and the man he becomes who cannot accept injustice: What kind of revolution might we wish for? A revolution for and with humanity? A revolution that lives up to humanity, with respect and understanding?

Schedule:
September 23rd Saturday – Megabox Pajubookcity 2 – 15:00 pm
September 26th Tuesday – Megabox Baekseok 7 – 19:40 pm

Trailer:

Forgetting and remembering 2: Reflection by 4.16 Act Media Committee
South Korea | 2017 – 175 min. – Competition | Korean Competition

April 16, 2014. A cruise ship with 476 passengers left for Jeju Island. And 304 passengers were never able to come back. Everyone watched the scene of 304 universes disappearing through live broadcasting. In the face of this painful disaster, some struggled to remember and some tried their best to erase the whole thing. This film records the collective trauma of Korean society after the disaster and asks why the 304 victims can’ t peacefully rest in the eternal sleep. [Via: Diaspora Film Festival 2017]

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 2 – 13:20 pm – Part I
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 2 – 15:10 pm – Part II

Trailer:

Life Imitation by Zhou Chen – China | 2017 – 82 min.
Competition | Asian Competition

This film parallels the real life with a virtual game. In the game, a female killer wanders the streets of Los Angeles on a dark night. Police sirens wail all around. There are people lying in the streets… possibly dead, possibly asleep. In real life, a woman expresses her suffering and depression over her love life. We also see different episodes of young people’s life in Shanghai, which showed how they give performances to try to fill their social roles in this big city.

Schedule:
September 23rd Saturday – Megabox Pajubookcity 2 – 11:00 am
September 25th Monday – Megabox Baekseok 3 – 17:30 pm

Trailer:

Motherland by Ramona Diaz – Philippines, US | 2016 – 94 min.
Non-Competition | Global Vision

Taking us into the heart of the planet’s busiest maternity hospital, this cinematic experience drops the viewer like an unseen outsider into the hospital’s stream of activity. At first, the subjects are strangers. But, as the film continues, it becomes absorbingly intimate, rendering increasingly familiar.

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 3 – 20:30 pm
September 28th Thursday – Megabox Baekseok 2 – 14:30 pm

Trailer:

Myeoneuri: My Son’s Crazy Wife by Sun Ho-bin – South Korea | 2017 – 80 min.
Non-Competition | Korean Docs Showcase

For 3-year marriage, we have fought every holiday, on parents´ birthdays, at ancestral rituals, and even on Christmas. We argue all the time. Tension between my wife and my mother is killing me.

Schedule:
September 23rd Saturday – Megabox Pajubookcity 6 – 14:00 pm
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 2 – 10:30 am

Nowhere to hide by Zaradasht Ahmed – Norway, Sweden | 2016 – 86 min.
Non-Competition | Global Vision

‘Nowhere to Hide’ follows male nurse Nori Sharif as he documents life in central Iraq’s ‘triangle of death’ after American forces leave in 2011. He eventually turns the camera on his own family’s five-year fight for survival, and ultimately captures a brave view of what he calls ‘an undiagnosed war.’

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Pajubookcity 1 – 11:00 am

Trailer:

Stranger in paradise by Guido Hendrix – Netherlands | 2016 – 73 min.
Competition | International Competition

In a classroom in Sicily, just inside the walls of Fortress Europe, recently arrived refugees receive lessons from a teacher (Valentijn Dhaenens) who has some rather unbalanced traits. One moment he mercilessly rejects the refugees—the next, mollifyingly, he embraces them. Operating at the intersection of documentary and fiction, Stranger in Paradise investigates the power relations between Europe and refugees

Schedule:
September 26th Tuesday – Megabox Pajubookcity 2 – 14:50 pm

Trailer:

Taste of Cement by Ziad Kalthoum – Germany, UAE, Lebanon | 2017 – 85 min.
Competition | International Competition

In Beirut, Syrian construction workers are building a skyscraper while at the same time their own houses at home are being shelled. The Lebanese war is over but the Syrian one still rages on. The workers are locked in the building site. They are not allowed to leave it after 7p.m. The Lebanese government has imposed night-time curfews on the refugees. Tormented by anguish and anxiety, while suffering the deprivation of the most basic human and workers right, they keep hoping for a different life.

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Baekseok 7 – 14:50 pm

Trailer:

The books we made by Uma Tanuku, Anupama Chandra – India | 2016 – 70 min.
Competition | Asian Competition

The Film is inspired by the work of Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon, who co-founded the first feminist publishing house in India: Kali for Women. The Film is about the joy and pain of surviving in non-lucrative profession. It looks back on thirty years in publishing and focusses on the feminist politics and friendships that make this survival possible.

Schedule:
September 26th Tuesday – Megabox Baekseok 3 – 16:00 pm

Trailer:

To kill Alice by Kim Sang-kyu – South Korea | 2017 – 76 min.
Competition | Korean Competition

Eunmi, a woman who underwent intense anticommunist education up as she grew up in South Korea, lives a normal life in America. However, after going on a trip to North Korea with her husband, her life begins to change. During a open forum event in South Korea taht she was invited to speak at, she suffers the unimaginable and the more she tries to escape from the situation, the worse and worse ot gets.

Schedule:
September 24th Sunday – Megabox Pajubookcity 2 – 16:00 pm

Tomorrow or when? by Su Su Hlaing – Myanmar | 2017 – 61 min.
Competition | Asian Competition

U Yaw Htung is one of the refugees who fled their homes and because of Kachin and Myanmar Military civil war. No one dare not go back home, battlefield. U Yaw Htung must go back to his village to get the cows to pay for his sons’ school fees. And he must pass through Nam Sam Yang village. It is the nearest place where both armies has set their camps and they both has sounded the area with their land mines. He has another meaningful reason for going back home.

Schedule:
September 23rd Saturday – Megabox Pajubookcity 2 – 13:00 pm
September 27th Wednesday – Megabox Baekseok 8 – 16:00 pm