SYNOPSIS
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Witnesses 2024 is an omnibus of three short films.
*screening order : The Footprints of the Invisible Man Walking on the Sand - Chores of one's own - Serial murder
Serial murder Memories triggered by a young man's death led the director to return to the construction site after 31 years.
The Footprints of the Invisible Man Walking on the Sand Mourning is a response to loss. It refers to a variety of processes to adjust to a world that has been changed by the death of a person. The film documents memories, testimonies, and funerals of those for whom death is as close as life.
Chores of one's own examines how seemingly rational choices can results in inequality.
£ªNo subtitle English.
REVIEW
Under the banner of independent journalism, Newstapa has annually collaborated with independent documentary creators to produce the Witnesses series. Witnesses 2024 is a collection of three new short films set to be released in the second half of 2024. Director Shin Mokya's film centers on Saekja, a transgender club manager in her late 60s, capturing the losses and disconnections she has experienced as a lifelong outsider. This poignant narrative is juxtaposed with images from the funeral of the late Byun Hui-su, a transgender soldier who, after undergoing gender reassignment surgery, was forcibly discharged and later took her own life. It highlights discrimination against LGBTQ+ and marginalized people through the ages. Director Soram's contribution reflects on the entrenched issues of gender inequality and hierarchy in daily life through the lens of domestic labor. The feminist perspective is evident in the warm yet critical examination of the most trivial, alienated, and excluded aspects of life, inviting audiences to reconsider the value and distribution of household work. In the final piece, Director Song Wooyong delves into the issue of industrial accidents, which starkly contrast with the self-congratulatory narratives of South Korea's economic growth and development. The reality of workers sacrificed for efficiency and profit is not an issue of the past or a distant country. It is a contemporary reality that we are witnessing in 2024. Witnesses 2024 can be seen as a kaleidoscope of Korean society.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Since 2015, The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism-News Tapa and the Newstapa Collaboration Center Foundation have collaborated with independent producers and directors to create and broadcast the documentary series Witnesses. We take pride in leading the landscape of current affairs programming by covering key social issues and topics that mainstream media have overlooked or failed to address. In 2020, we expanded our solidarity and collaboration by establishing the Newstapa Fund in partnership with the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival.