K-Family Affairs
NAM Arum
- Korea
- 2023
- 89min
- 12 +
- DCP
- color
World Premiere
Synopsis
Director Arum initially believes that the democratic society in which she lives is a precious legacy of her parents' generation, who fought valiantly against dictatorship in the 1980s. However, her conviction is shaken when her father, a prominent government figure, is implicated in the Sewol Ferry disaster. This pivotal event prompts her to question the concepts of justice and the framework of government. As she embarks on this introspective journey, she seeks to understand her own generation's contributions to shaping justice and democracy in society.
Review
The 386 generations take pride in their contribution to the democracy movement in South Korea, but they are now required to take responsibility or respond to the evils in Korean society. The director's father became a public official with the ambition to make a rational administrative system and the mother became a feminist activist. However, the director's faith in her parents started to be shaken by the Sewol Ferry Disaster that happened in 2014 when she turned 20. The director leaves her parents and spends time alone to judge society independently. In her previous short, Pink-Femi, the director showed a process of standing against the pressure and opposition of her feminist mother and establishing her own life attitude as a woman. In K-Family Affairs, the director explores her father's life as a high-ranking public official and takes a life journey to face her social responsibility. Throughout the film, the director sheds light on the concerns over family relationships that cannot be abandoned or embraced easily. The film also makes the audiences think about what needs to be done to create a society that maturely distinguishes between an understanding attitude toward personal human relationships and a critical attitude toward public social relations.Director
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NAM Arum
Nam directed Pink-Femi (2018), which tells the story of her and her mother's experiences during the #MeToo movement in Korea. During the period of closed borders due to COVID-19, she collaborated with Japanese directors to co-produce an AR-based documentary titled Teleporting (2021). Patriotic Girl (2023) marks her debut feature documentary.