The Voices of the Silenced

One for All, All for One

September 2014 •Korean

Osaka Korean High School has provided education for the past six decades to the children of pro-North Korean residents in Japan. This school is located only about 20 minutes away from Hanazono Stadium, the mecca of Japan’s high school rugby, but it was not until 1994, 18 years after the foundation of a rugby team at the high school, that the Japanese education ministry approved the team’s entry into the official league. Since then, the team has run in the national league as a representative of the Osaka area and been considered a front-runner ever since. The team has strong players and passionate supporters, but it faces difficulties just before winning the league.

Arirang Rhapsody

February 2024 •Japanese

The protagonists of the film are the Zainichi Korean women living in Kawasaki. They were tossed about by the war, and after many trips to and fro across the sea in search of a place to live, they finally arrived in Kawasaki, where they have lived modestly and vigorously.

Strangers on the Field

March 2015 •Korean

In April 2013, unfamiliar faces appear at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the opening matches between Doosan and SK. The nervous middle-aged men throwing and batting the first ball are, in fact, Korean-Japanese former team members that played on that same spot in the 1982 finals of the Bong-hwang-dae-ki games.

I Am From Chosun

December 2021 •Korean

After 15 years of knowing Chosun people in Japan I met on Mt. Geumgang in 2002, I face the history of colonization and division that I had not known before. They’ve been to North Korea many times, but never to South Korea. They tell us why they want to live as Chosun people despite the discrimination in Japanese society. 

The Hanbok on the Court

September 2020 •Korean

Dear Pyongyang

January 2006 •Japanese

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

Soup and Ideology

June 2022 •Korean

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang, carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

Discrimination

March 2023 •Korean

Since 2013, Japan has implemented the free high school policy. However, only 10 Chongryon Korean high schools are excluded from this policy. The reason is that there are suspicions that the grant for free education will be misused by Chochongryon and others. Five of these schools protested about this measure and filed a claim for damages against the government in 2013. After four years of hearings, the first trial decision was made on July 19, 2017, starting with the case of Hiroshima Chongryon Korean high school.

Our School

March 2007 •Korean

This documentary is about the 3rd and 4th generation Korean residents of Japan who are students of Chosen elementary, middle, and high school in Hokkaido. It follows the students through one year of the eventual 11 years` national education. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing their everyday lives.

After Chosun

September 2017 •Korean

Imman Kim wants to reconcile with his parents, who emigrated to Osaka after April 3 Jeju Uprising. Cheolwoong Park has supported his younger sister during his entire life, blaming his father who moved to Tokyo to avoid guilt-by association. Soonam Park has devoted her life to human rights movement for a second-generation Korean-Japanese and her daughter Mayi Park who also lives as a Korean-Japanese. This film tell us about meaning of a nation through their life stories.

Korean Schools in Japan

November 2018 •Japanese

In 1948, after the Japan’s defeat, the General Headquarters and Japanese government ordered that the Chosen gakko, schools for Koreans in Japan,ō be shut down. Koreans in Osaka strongly resisted, and 16-year-old Kim Taeil was even shot and killed by the police. This was the Hanshin Education Incident. 70 years have passed, but the Japanese oppression continues. They've removed the Chosen gakkoō from being eligible for free education. Gaining strength from the growing hatred from the conservatives, the Abe administration is misusing the educational issue as a means to cause political strife. In the midst of ongoing conflicts in Japan, nonfiction writer KO Chanyu has directed Korean Schools in Japan, compiling a history of the Koreans' fight for education.

The Family of One Hundred Years

April 2021 •Korean

In Kawasaki, Japan, 1st to 3rd generation of Korean-Japanese and Americans share their daily lives and wish for a symbiotic society. The inter-Korean summit in 2000 brought reconciliation and hope to the divided Korean community. Meanwhile, hundreds of hateful demonstrators are approaching Sakuramoto, the Korean residence, amid deepening tensions between Japan and Korea in 2016.

Pacchigi! Love & Peace

October 2007 •Japanese

In 1974, during the height of the recession, a Japanese Korean family relocates to Tokyo to raise money and seek better treatment for their ill son.

Deliver Us from Evil

August 2020 •Korean

A retired contract killer goes on a bloody rampage when a young girl finds herself at the mercy of gangland human traffickers and only one man can come to her rescue, with an arsenal of weapons and years of experience in the art of killing.

Fighter in the Wind

August 2004 •Korean

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

Blood and Bones

November 2004 •Japanese

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

Kim's War

February 1992 •Korean

This is the true story of Kim Hee-ro and his fight for justice in Japan. On February 20, 1968, two Japanese gangsters were killed in a cabaret in Shizuoka, Japan. Kim Hee-개, a Korean resident of Japan, was accused of th crime. Kim held 13 people hostage in a nearby hotel, trying to have his story of constant intimidation and threats by the gangsters told, but eventually he was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment.

GO

October 2001 •Japanese

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

Worst by Chance

September 2003 •Japanese

Hidenori is a Japanese-Korean man with no sense of belonging, destination or education. He drifts around and meanders through life until a death reminds him of his heritage and so begins a journey to South Korea.

Chong

July 2000 •Japanese

Ao Chong is the first feature film directed by Lee Sang-Il about Korean high school students growing up in Japan.