Kang Sarah

Sarkash: Women's Sharia Court

In a tiny lane of Mumbai's slums, sounds of spirited arguments spill out from a modest storefront. Inside, a young man and woman sit on the floor, and a group of barefoot women preside over the scene from atop a wobbly desk. A divorce negotiation is underway. Overseeing the paperwork of a couple's separation is 63 year-old Khatoon. Few years prior, she opened the first Women's Sharia Court in India. Fed-up with the traditional all-male Muslim councils whose interpretations of Islamic law have discriminated against women, she decided to train herself as an Islamic judge to give women a space for seeking justice. Every day, she welcomes couples in crisis. She listens as they narrate their conflicts before offering advice. Glowering under their veils, the women plaintiffs are indignant and brave. In the form of a courtroom drama, this filmic chronicle showcases the strength with which Khatoon handles, with poise and breathtaking calm, these intense demonstrations of emotions.

My Missing Aunt

On a wintery night, Juyeon receives a call from her father. In his drunken voice, he leaves strange remarks, “Don’t become like your aunt who committed suicide.” Stunned by the family secret, she starts chasing the traces of her aunt, who resembles her strikingly. Juyeon breaks the suffocating silence and recreates her aunt’s lost voice through animation.

Becoming Kim

13 years ago, I, Susanne, a German woman, and Jeong Rae a Korean man, fell in love at first sight and promised each other eternity. However, Jeong Rae who had to live as a foreigner in Germany, decided to return to his hometown in South Korea and open a chicken restaurant with his mother. I told him that I will start making a film or file for divorce. We both laughed, but we knew: this is serious. When we got married, we thought that love would overcome all the cultural differences between us, but the reality was not so easy. My parents, who consider Jeong Rae irresponsible for not having a proper job; my mother-in-law Sun Ja, who can't understand a single word I say; our daughter, Hannah, who just wants to have a "regular“ family; and me, feeling jealous of the chicken that Jeong Rae is so passionate about.

Queer My Friends

Queer My Friends portrays a very important chapter of Kang-won’s life: his coming out as gay and the changes he goes through from the eyes of his best friend Ah-hyun. This 30s coming-of-age buddy film draws how these two from such different backgrounds grow up together by questioning, exploring, and, of course, fighting each other. While Kang-Won struggles to embrace his sexuality, nationality, and identity, Ah-hyun asks herself what it means to find oneself and accept others for who they really are.

25cm

Before my thirty-fourth birthday, I underwent emergency surgery at the ER. I’ve been diagnosed with stage 3 endometrial cancer. Enduring the tough chemotherapy, I sense that it changes the way I see the world and how my body experiences it. It also recalls my memories of my grandmother who fought against kidney cancer but passed away in pain. I realize that I have never thought about my fear of death even though I filmed my grandmother's funeral eight years ago. With a 25cm surgical scar from my navel to the perineum, I now pick up the camera to confront my deepest fear of death with the desire to live, standing on the border between death and life. 25cm is a personal essay exploring the question that a person, undergoing the tough treatment, asks oneself: Is life worth living despite the overwhelming pain?

Hijo Mayor

A Korean family who immigrated to the opposite side of the world, Argentina, meets different fragments of memories. Through the perspective of LILA, the youngest daughter born in Argentina yet doesn't feel true belongingness, a tale of a family’s immigration, identity, and conflicts unfolds. At the crossroads of fading memories, how should we remember each other?

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.

The Man Standing Next

When the investigation of 'Koreagate' takes place, Park Yong-gak, a former KCIA director who knows everything about the government's operations, heads to the United States in exile.

The Drug King

Busan, South Korea, 1970s. Lee Doo-sam is a small-time smuggler. After helping a drug gang to smuggle meth, he falls into the dark crime world. Quick-witted and full of ambition, he eventually takes over the drug underworld and starts to lead a double life: a good community leader during the day but an infamous drug lord during the night.

Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava

Tiger mom Cuc strives for a perfect traditional family in Vietnam, but when her daughter MAI faces mental illness and her son Quang comes out as gay, Cuc’s dream shatters. An unplanned baby enters their lives, prompting Quang to create a time capsule — this very film. He documents their journey to raise the baby and opens a portal to the past through their diaries. Can they learn to accept each other and give the baby a loving home?

Behind the Dark Night

Inspired by Christopher Nolan, members of a movie viewing club decide to make a movie. They shoot the whole process and record it for a limited edition DVD. It is a super hero movie called THE DARK NIGHT.

Sea Pineapple

Sea pineapples degenerate their brains once they find a place to settle. Yeon-gyo walks through the canyons of the American Southwest under the blazing sun, relying only on the shadowy outline of the person in front of her. As that figure becomes clearer, she is suddenly transported to a hospital corridor in Seoul where she was tiptoeing for her mom’s life and death and the backstage of a theater in Seoul where her ex-lover Ji-yeon once performed. Torn between forgetting and remembering, Yeon-gyo encounters a familiar nurse from the hospital working at a remote canyon motel. Like the relentless sun in the canyon, Yeon-gyo wishes the moments in Seoul would stretch into an endless summer, free from the constant waiting. In search of the meaning behind Ji-yeon’s words about finding dinosaur footprints, Yeon-gyo walks through the canyon of loss and discovery, struggling with grief.