Beginning as an attempt to document the present by rewinding the past, the film reveals a startling truth: that which has vanished and that which will vanish both persist in the here and now. Traces of what was overlap with the current moment, creating a layered reality where memory and time blur, and the forgotten world asserts its continued existence.

In Busan, a road threads through four central districts—Seo-gu, Jung-gu, Dong-gu, and Busanjin-gu—offering sweeping views of the city below. It is called Mangyang-ro, literally “the road for gazing at the ocean.” Yet locals have long known it by another name: Jungbok Road. Rather than explaining the origin of these names, Forget the Ocean, When We Look at the Ocean dwells on the lives of those who inhabit this road, tracing the emotions embedded in its spaces and the quiet traces left by time. 

Director Kim Jigon extends the work he began in his Grandma series around 2010, documenting the daily lives and living spaces of elderly women in this neighborhood. Here, the road becomes a living archive, and his camera a means of preserving its memory. Through meticulously composed shots and refined editing, the modest pharmacies, beauty salons, laundries, key repair shops, and photo studios along Mangyang-ro emerge with the precision and resonance of poetry. Together, these neighborhood fixtures form a harmonious visual composition—an unassuming yet deeply evocative portrait of place. In an era of relentless change and global acceleration, the film poses an urgent question: can one still preserve identity while keeping hold of place and community? The answer feels increasingly uncertain. 

Paying quiet homage to aging and to the layers of time they embody, Forget the Ocean, When We Look at the Ocean remains faithful to documentary’s fundamental role as a record of what exists—while standing as a subtle yet firm act of resistance against Korea’s development ideology, with its fixation on erasing the old and replacing it with the new.

There was a time when the ocean from the heights of Mangyang-ro felt like a shared horizon—belonging to everyone. Only later did I learn the road’s name, and that its winding alleys were called Jungbok Road. Here, in February 2010, we met a group of elderly women, two of whom became dear to us: “Takju,” for the rice wine she sold, and “Jeans,” for her fondness for denim. This film reflects on the years since—a quiet chronicle of what disappears and what endures. Those moments, now part of me, still inhabit the narrow alleyways, layered like silt along a road I once thought would last forever.

• Producer오민욱 OH Minwook
• Cinematography 김지곤 KIM Jigon 오민욱 OH Minwook 장예림 JANG Yerim 손호목 SON Homok
• Edit 장예림 JANG Yerim 김지곤 KIM Jigon
• Music 에티앤 드 라 싸이애뜨 Etienne De La SAYETTE
• Cast 하말필 HA Malphil 양금연 YANG Geumyeon