Development Fund
The Night of the Factory Girls
KIM Geonhee
- South Korea
- 70min
- DCP, mov
- color/black and white
Gender&Sexuality History Social&Human Interest Place
Synopsis
This story begins with a photo taken a century ago during the colonial era. The director goes to Yeongdeungpo with a camera to find any trace or signs of factory girls in the photo. There are no large factories anymore, only apartments, department stores, racetracks, inns, steel factories, restaurants, unidentified places, or empty ruins. Through the lives and landscapes of Yeongdeungpo, the director wants to discover any traces that factory girls might have left. The remaining factory fell into decay as it has been exposed to lights for too long. The building has had no visitors for so long that it has become a house for pigeons with nowhere to go. Later, the director meets the families of the factory girls. The director looks into the lives of the girls that their families remember and finds the traces in their gestures and facial expressions. There, the director meets the girls who survived. What they went through during those fraught times is marked on the faces and bodies of the girls, Oksun and Boksun.
Director's Statement
A century-old photo of factory girls working at a leather factory in Yeongdeungpo has been found. What kind of lives did they have there? What do their faces tell us? "The Night of the Factory Girls" is about stories of factory girls during the Japanese colonial era which have not been addressed properly before. In Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, there are word-of-mouth stories of girls who used to work at factories, but there are no signs of them. The only thing left is a mixture of disparate places like factories, department stores, food streets, inns, racetracks, and red-light areas. "The Night of the Factory Girls" is a project that deliberates and searches for the lost places and times inhabited by the factory girls of Yeongdeungpo, with the region serving as the background. The film intends to reveal the lives of factory girls by discovering their stories, from places which seemingly lost all traces of them and have become distant memories.
Director
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KIM Geonhee
Credit
- Producer송원재 SONG Wonjae