Los Angeles Filmforum, GYOPO, and LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) present The Margins of Dream Language: Contemporary Korean Female Experimental Filmmakers
When image and language are paired together, written and spoken words can reposition the image’s hierarchical role and create an opportunity for a new point of view. In this program, Korean female filmmakers use text itself as a material—either directly burned into the film or inserted as voice over—to push cinema towards a radical location or realm, engaging with an expansive legacy of colonial power dynamics. With the understanding that translated language with subtitles always creates a gap, this series welcomes and engages with it as an act of defiance, insisting on opacity and being unexplainable.
The selected films are in subtle unity as they repurpose the dominant language and reclaim it to propel the discourse on diasporic identity. Yet each filmmaker also asks audiences to recognize her unique directionality and experiences consciously. These films have either directly or loosely emerged from themes of Korean female identity, but they also propose divergent responses to militarism, homogeneity, patriarchy, immigration issues, etc. Eventually, they invite audiences to build bridges between poetic dream, politics, and the decolonial gaze.
This screening, curated by Seokyoung Yang, includes works by Eugene Mayu Kim, Heehyun Choi, Woojin Kim, Onyou Oh, and Boyoon Choi, an essay by Jae Min Lee. It will be followed by a conversation between curator Seokyoung Yang and writer Jae Min Lee.
ASL interpretation will be provided.
“Feeling marooned on an island of foreignness manifests in different ways for different people – while some embrace said foreignness and enjoy it, mine manifested into intense cases of homesickness that transformed into my craving for validation and feeling of inclusion. When I entered college in America, away from home
back in South Korea, I was extremely lost – amid the white American students who frolicked about shows I had never heard before, and singers I did not know existed, the atmosphere felt welcoming, yet overwhelmingly aloof…” — Jae Min Lee
Jae Min Lee (she/her) is a writer born and raised in the busy city of Seoul in South Korea. Jae Min is an enthusi- ast of cinema that is created through an anti-colonist, non- male, non-white viewpoint and that challenges the status quo. She uses writing as a medium to show her appreciation for said media and further criticizes ones that continue to reinforce the colonialist status quo. Jae Min is currently in the senior year of her undergraduate studies at Smith College, majoring in sociology and film and media studies.
Curator Seokyoung Yang (she/they) is a filmmaker, poet, and curator dedicated to artistic experimentation. Born and raised in Korea, she investigates the correlation between language and diasporic identity. Her works have been screened at San Diego Aisan Film Festival, Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, Minsheng Art Museum, and Minnesota International Film Festival. She has previously worked for the Camden International Film Festival programming team.
Special thanks to those who have supported her to develop the program:
Berenice Reynaud, Betzy Bromberg, Corina Copp, Edgar Jorge Baralt, Jheanelle Brown, Julie Murray, K.J. Relth-Miller, Micah Gottlieb, Michael Leong, Mike Stoltz, Nina Ma, Onyou Oh, Patricia Ledesma Villon, Sarah Yanni, and Xiao Zhang
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city’s longest- running organization screening experimental and avant-garde film and video art, documentaries, and experimental animation. 2023 is our 48th year.
GYOPO is a collective of diasporic Korean cultural producers and arts professionals generating and sharing progressive, critical, intersectional and intergenerational discourses, community alliances, and free educational programs in Los Angeles and beyond.
LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) presents artist-driven, community responsive public projects. The organization empowers artists with dynamic, unconventional practices to have autonomy over the presentation of their work and in meaningful, direct connection with the public.
