Women directors on the rise in patriarchal South Korea as feminist movement continues to grow
- Female voices in South Korean arts have been amplified in recent years, no more so than in the independent movie industry
- A new film series presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre attests to the progress that has been made, but much more still needs to be done, one director says
Women’s voices have grown loud in recent years, fuelled by global campaigns such as the #MeToo movement. In South Korea that’s also true, with the feminist movement growing through campaigns including #EscapeTheCorset, which pushed back against the country’s rigid beauty standards.
Political shifts in South Korea have boosted the movement. In 2020, the Women’s Party, the country’s first feminist political group, was formed to make sure women’s issues remain on the agenda in what remains a deeply conservative, patriarchal society.
Female voices in the arts have also been amplified. To celebrate, the Hong Kong Arts Centre – together with South Korea’s DMZ International Documentary Film Festival and the Seoul Independent Film Festival – is presenting films made by South Korean women in a programme called “Women Direct. Korean Indies! – Korean Women Independent Film Series”.
Running until the end of July, the series encompasses feature films, animations and documentaries.
Among the films is Untold, directed by Lee-kil Bora, a deeply personal film that explores two very different memories of civilian massacre during the Vietnam war: the memories of the Korean soldiers, of whom Bora’s grandfather was one; and the testimonies of Vietnamese survivors, including Nguyen Thi Thanh, who lost her mother and three siblings in the 1968 Phong Nhi massacre, and Nguyen Lap, a survivor of the 1968 Ha My massacre, who lost two brothers in the killing, as well as his eyesight.
“In history education in South Korea, there’s nothing about the massacres against civilians during the Vietnam war,” says Bora through an interpreter via Zoom from South Korea. Research tells a different story: that South Korean soldiers, who fought with their US allies, killed an estimated 9,000 Vietnamese civilians.