Planet of Snail

Is Korea a democratic republic or a prosecution republic? Can you be confident that the blade of the prosecution is not aiming at you? Their hunt has begun. Following the coordinates thrown by the prosecution, the media gathers, and rumors circulate. Prosecutors wield a sword before the angry public. Who is the one being chased over there? Are you confident that you are not the one?

When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.

Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean housewife, was forced to come to South Korea and became its citizen against her will. As her seven years of struggle to go back to her family in North Korea continues, the political absurdity hinders her journey back to her loved ones. The life of her family in the North goes on in emptiness, and she fears that she might become someone, like a shadow, who exists only in the fading memory of her family.​

On a city street at night, a barefoot teenage girl with the legs of her sweatpants rolled up lights a cigarette and sticks it between her lips before connecting to the probation office's voice monitoring system. "Four, five, six, seven, four, five, six, seven…" She repeats the meaningless numbers requested by the system aloud. Her face is never shown, yet we can almost see her expression.

The film follows the 5 athletes who competed in Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. A female ice hockey player who was adopted to the United States, a skeleton player from Ghana, an Afghanistan skier, a British snowboarder and a ski jumper who overcame a knee injury. They all step into the world of sports by going beyond their personal and human limitations. The film emphasizes their steps and trails through the images of their continuous walks. At the same time the walks are connected to the division of the hosting country, Korea. Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games has overcome the conflict that could have led to another war, leading to participation of both South and North Koreas. Beyond the convention of celebrating only the winners, the film put significance in the whole path by looking at their stories behind the participation. Just like the title, the film depicts us beyond the border.

is director YI Seung-jun’s latest feature who charmed the world’s documentary fans with the love story of a deaf blind poet and his soul mate in . The director switches the focus to a mother whose daughter was born with hearing and visual impairment. Without having seen a ray of light or heard any sound for the last 19 years, Ye-ji’s world seems inexplicable and looks as if she is floating in space like an astronaut. Still, the mother cannot give up on Ye-ji, since she encountered some magical moments of connection with her daughter. The film invites us to a mother and daughter’s journey into finding words of their own.