Zainichi filmmaker's lifetime documenting Japanese wartime atrocities takes center stage
The DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) will mark the 80th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule with a retrospective of Zainichi Korean filmmaker Park Soo-nam's complete works. This first-ever comprehensive showcase runs online Feb. 28-March 28 and will make all five of her documentaries freely accessible via the docuVoDA platform.
A second-generation Korean Japanese, or Zainichi, Park has devoted her career to chronicling the forgotten victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. Born in 1935 in Mie Prefecture and raised in Yokohama, she made her directorial debut in the 1980s, focusing on the narratives of Korean survivors of the atomic bombs, military sex slavery and forced labor.
"In 2025, the 80th anniversary of liberation, we continue standing with the comfort women who suffered as sex slaves, and we remain outraged by the exploitation of forced laborers," said DMZ Docs Programmer Kang Jin-seok. "Yet we often overlook how these histories survive through documentation. Park's five films powerfully demonstrate how records create memory."
Featured films at the retrospective include: Park's debut work "The Other Hiroshima: Korean A-bomb Victims Tell Their Story" (1986), which captures testimonies of Korean atomic bomb victims; "Song of Arirang – Voices from Okinawa" (1991), which documents the Koreans forced into military service and sexual slavery during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa; "Nuchigafu" (2012), which unearths war memories previously kept silent; and "The Silence" (2016), winner of the White Goose Award at the 8th DMZ Docs.
"The Silence" documents the survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery during World War II, including Bae Bong-gi, who first brought the issue to public attention in the 1980s, and Lee Ok-sun, who was imprisoned at age 17 in a Manchurian "comfort station." The documentary resonated deeply in both Korea and Japan for moving beyond mere documentation to examine the power structures that silenced the victims.
Park's latest work, "Voices of the Silenced" (2024), created with her daughter Park Ma-ui, revisits 30,000 meters of 16mm footage Park has accumulated throughout her career. The Korean Independent Film Association named it last year's top independent film.
The 17th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival runs Sept. 11-17, 2025, in Goyang and Paju in Gyeonggi Province. The festival, established in 2009 and situated less than 20 kilometers away from the heavily fortified inter-Korean border, focuses on documentaries promoting "peace, coexistence and reconciliation."
Filmmakers can submit entries until April 30 for the International Competition and May 23 for the Korean Competition, with various categories offering prizes ranging from 3 million won ($2,100) to 15 million won ($10,500).
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
