15 Films you should not miss at the 22nd Seoul International Women’s Film Festival

By Asian Film Festival on September 5, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

We present a list of fifteen films you shouldn’t miss at the 22nd Seoul International Women’s Film Festival (South Korea) which will take place from September 10th – 16th (2020) in Seoul, South Korea.

About the festival:
The Seoul International Women’s Film Festival (SIWFF) is a unique and influential event presenting new values and the alternatives from a feminist perspective among Korean international film festivals. The festival contributes to the development of women’s positive values and plays an essential role establishing a network between Asian and the other countries. SIWFF provides the ways to promote and exhibit Korean women’s films abroad by discovering and supporting women in film industry. It also helps Korean film industry develop and have diversity. Forming future-oriented, alternative culture, SIWFF contributes to the development of the balanced Korea culture to improve Korean national image.

Selected Films:

**Birthday** by Lee Jongun – South Korea | 2018 – 120 minutes
Section: Linkage: Director X Critic

Since April 2014… A story of people left behind. After losing their son Suho in the Sewol ferry tragedy, Jungil and Soonnam live with unbearable longing for their son. As his birthday comes around, the family misses him even more. Although he is no longer with them, family and friends gather together to celebrate Suho’s birthday with special memories. On one day every year, people gather for him and say, “We will never forget you.”

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcgAbbSjkR8

**Comfort** by Park Emmanuel Monnchil – South Korea | 2020 – 73 minutes
Section: Polemics

KIM Soonak is a survivor of sex slavery by the Japanese military. The war may have ended, but her life was still at a war. She lived in the prostitute quarters to survive, did sex business in the US military camp town, and peddled goods from the US military. She raised two kids on her own as she worked as a maid. We’ll listen to her story in her absence. The film reconstructs the life story of the deceased KIM Soonak with interviews with activists, archive videos, animation, and read-aloud testimony.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/F8rKykY2P00

**Eunmi** by Jeong Jeeyeong – South Korea | 2019 – 71 minutes
Section: Discovery

Eunmi works hard to prepare for the civil service examination, relieving her stress by casually going out with various men. She meets a guy at her private academy and feels drawn to him, yet there are strange rumors around him.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/ksiIeWQ79aE

**Flag, Blue Sky, Party** by Jang Yunmi – South Korea | 2019 – 160 minutes
Section: New Currents

This is a story behind the article, “KEC, concluding a peaceful no-strike in wage and collective bargaining for eight consecutive years.”

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/wVP6Gu8Mwvk

**Kim Ji-young, Born 1982** by Kim Doyoung – South Korea | 2019 – 119 minutes
Section: Linkage: Director X Critic

Born in the spring of 1982, Jiyoung lives as someone’s daughter, wife, colleague, and mother in 2019. At times, she feels locked in and suffocated. Her husband Daehyun, her adorable daughter, and her family, whom she can’t meet very often, are the strength that keeps her going. However one day, she suddenly begins talking as if she’s someone else. Her husband is afraid of mentioning it for fear of hurting her. She just says OK and smiles at him.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f-XGrn_7Kk

**Lucky Chan-sil by** Kim Chohee – South Korea | 2019 – 96 minutes
Section: Linkage: Director X Critic

No house, no man, and quite suddenly, no more job. Chansil, a movie producer, considers her life doomed and tries to make a living as the housekeeper of an actress friend, Sophie. Sophie’s French tutor Young gives her butterflies in her stomach, and a mysterious man shows up, insisting he’s Leslie CHEUNG himself! The landlord of her new house is just a sweetheart. She had only had luck with work before, and now that she’s quit filmmaking, she may finally get ‘lucky’ in other aspects of her life, too.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/wuKA3KC6fNU

**Patriot Game 2 – To Call a Deer a Horse** by Kyung Soon – South Korea | 2019 – 97 minutes – Section: Linkage: Director x Critic

Due to the case of LEE Seokki’s sabotage plot in 2013, the Unified Progressive Party, the second opposition party back in 2014, was dismissed by the Constitutional Court. The film interviews the members involved in the dissolution of the Party, the persons concerned, and those who have watched the process. It also examines different perspectives and positions, public opinions, false information, the Constitution, democracy, as well as the perception of North Korea. In the end, a belated question is asked; What have we missed?

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/zxbNme3PMt0

**Startup Girls** by Ikeda Chihiro – Japan | 2019 – 93 minutes
Section: New Currents

Hikari is a university student who lives freely, purely in her way. She’s hungry to create new startups. Nozomi is a Corporate VC at a big Japanese company. She has always followed the ‘correct’ path, giving up on many things for a stable life. Nozomi dislikes Hikari’s way of living. But when Nozomi needs to work with Hikari’s startup because it became an investment, things begin to happen… Intense problems occur, but in the end, Hikari and Nozomi learn there are many choices they can take to develop their own life and career, and friendship.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/S5iChCbip9w

**Summer is the Coldest Season** by Zhou Sun – China | 2019 – 98 minutes
Section: Discovery

Jiahe’s mother was murdered unexpectedly two years ago. Because of that, she and her father both lost their focus in life. Jiahe’s father failed to find any decent job after retiring from the wrestling team, so he worked for a slaughterhouse as a beef deliverer. This job made Jiahe a victim of public shaming. She became lonely and helpless, and formed her own personal moral code — fighting back in every way possible towards shaming and unfairness.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/jGLGfHyF2HA

**Take Me Home** by Han Jay – South Korea | 2020 – 98 minutes
Section: Queer Rainbow

Eunsoo and Yewon are in a same-sex marriage. Their lives are disrupted by the precarious word, ‘family.’ Also, Soomin is left behind all alone. Eunsoo, Yewon and Soomin are now trying to climb the wall that lies before them.

Schedule:
September 15th, 2020 | Tuesday | MEGABOX SangamWorldcup 7 | 19:30 pm

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL_SHndQ06g

**The Big Picture** by Kwon Hyo – South Korea | 2012 – 92 minutes
Section: Polemics

In 2007, authors from Korea, China, and Japan decide to interpret and make a picture book about ‘peace’, and publish it simultaneously. The Korean picture book author KWON Yoonduck decides to portray the story of the ‘comfort women’ for Japanese military based on the testimony of SHIM Dalyeon. She starts the project with the vigorous support of her colleagues, but faces an unpredictable situation as the once-forgotten scars of her past begin to permeate her drawings. Will she succeed bringing ‘peace’ to the kids?

Schedule:
September 13th, 2020 | Sunday | MEGABOX SangamWorldcup 9 | 11:30 am

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/VPcAWD9Ygw8

**The Cloud in Her Room** by Zheng Lu Xinyuan – China | 2020 – 101 minutes
Section: Discovery

This is a girl’s visual diary. She writes about the beloved strangers that fulfilled so-called meanings of life. They walk in without a knock and they leave without a bye. Meanwhile, the new year approaches, as if nothing has happened.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/WzN14rDigTM

**The Quiet Noise** by Kang Yeeun – South Korea | 2020 – 63 minutes
Section: Discovery

The kid suffers from _____________.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/tThrPcbKho0

**The Silence** by Park Soonam – South Korea, Japan | 2017 – 117 minutes
Section: Polemics

During the Korean War, 17-year-old LEE Oksun was abducted and taken to a ‘comfort station’ in North Manchuria. In 1994, after 50 years, LEE and 14 other ‘comfort women’ broke their silence to demand an apology and personal compensation from the Japanese government. Now 20 years later, and with most of the people involved in the fight for recognition no longer with us, is the agreement between the governments of Korea and Japan an appropriate solution for all involved? The director, a second-generation Korean-Japanese female filmmaker, worked closely with the survivors and collected records of their struggles for years. In The Silence, the testimonies of LEE Oksun and the other living witnesses are revealed for present and future generations.

Schedule:
September 13th, 2020 | Sunday | MEGABOX SangamWorldcup 9 | 14:30 pm

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/DwoTqte4JBI

**Two Blue Stripes** by Gina S. Noer – Indonesia | 2019 – 113 minutes
Section: New Currents

Dara and Bima are pregnant and try to hide it until graduation. But once the secret is out, they find themselves subject to the many societal pressures and expectations. In this non-conventional teen pregnancy story, prolific screenwriter Gina S. NOER tackles the divide between the old and the new, and the many ways families are made in her directorial debut.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/BvY3QVIxhtY

For more information about the festival and the films please visit the following link: http://siwff.or.kr