While Korean independent cinema has experienced impressive growth over the past decade or so, perhaps even more impressive has been the tremendous evolution of the documentary scene. Korea’s feature documentary sector has been active for a long time, but thematically and stylistically, up until recently struggled to distinguish itself from the TV non-fiction realm and was unable to establish itself on the international scene.

Now, the landscape is very different, as a broad array of Korean documentaries are paraded at festivals around the world and several non-fiction items have gone toe-to-toe with commercial blockbusters on the box office chart. In 2014, the documentary JIN Mo-young’s My Love, Don't Cross That River amassed a staggering 4.8 million admissions (USD 34.07 million), which meant it was seen by almost one in ten residents in Korea, a lofty new benchmark for an independent local production. That same year, IM Heung-soon’s Factory Complex earned the Silver Lion from the Venice Biennale, considered the top art exhibition in the world. Meanwhile, LEE Sang-ho’s The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol earned the most press coverage of any film in 2014 following its controversial bow at the Busan International Film Festival.

The range of styles and themes in Korean non-fiction cinema has become expansive, but four main (if somewhat transmutable) categories have emerged: dramatic human interest stories, reverential biographies, piercing investigative exposes, and the arthouse documentary. In the past few weeks and months, four of the most notable Korean documentarians have returned with titles that neatly fit into each category: JIN Mo-young’s Old Marine Boy; KIM Dong-won’s Jung Il-woo, My Friend; LEE Sang-ho’s Suicide Made; and IM Heung-soon’s Reborn.

 

Director JIN Mo-young first made his name in the TV sector, having produced and directed numerous documentaries since getting his start in 1997. In 2012, he turned his attention to the film word, first as a producer on SHIVA, Throw Your Life. Two years later he would enter history books with My Love, Don't Cross That River, the granddaddy of all Korean human interest documentaries. The film focused on an elderly couple who had been together for 76 years and chronicles the remaining months of their union as death looms on the horizon.

For his latest feature, JIN focuses on Myong-ho and his family, who defected from North Korea in 2006. Since then, Myong-ho has been working as a deep sea diver in a village by the Korean border, hoisting himself into an old diving suit each morning to scrape the sea floor for food. The film chronicles his struggles and the resilient nature of his spirit as he continues to provide for his family. Old Marine Boy was selected as the opening film of the 9th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in September this year. The heart-warming film opened on November 2nd and had to date welcomed about 6,500 spectators (USD 43,000).

 

 

A vital figure in Korea’s documentary scene from the 1980s until the mid-2000s, KIM Dong-won was among the first people to document some of the pervasive social ills facing Korea, including the illegal displacement of the poor during aggressive redevelopment schemes. His most famous films remains Repatriation (2004), which documents the struggles of long-term North Korean prisoners who desired to be repatriated to the North.

KIM returned this year with his first film in nine years, the biography title Jung Il-woo, My Friend. The film chronicles the life of Jesuit priest JUNG Il-woo, born John H. Daly in Illinois. Based in Korea since the 1960s, JUNG championed the poor for several decades in neighborhoods that were threatened with redevelopment. In the aftermath of his death in 2014, KIM examines the life and achievements of someone he stood side-by-side with during the expulsion of the residents of the Sanggye neighborhood to make way for the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

While somewhat anomalous with the rest of his body of work, KIM’s latest joins a trend of reverential documentaries on popular figures in Korea. Many other religious titles exist, but among more mainstream examples are this year’s OUR PRESIDENT, an examination of the career of late president ROH Moo-hyun which brought in 1.85 million viewers. Jung Il-woo, My Friend, which debuted at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, was released on October 26th and had to date welcomed 9,000 viewers (USD 58,000).

 

A veteran investigative reporter for the MBC news network, LEE Sang-ho debuted as a filmmaker in 2014, when he released the explosive documentary The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol. A report into the rescue operations that took place following the sinking of the Sewol Ferry in April of that year, the film was screened at the Busan International Film Festival, despite pressure from local politicians to pull the film. The controversial title kicked off political troubles for the festival that have endured until now.

Last year, LEE returned with a new film at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan). Originally titled Who Killed Kim Kwang-seok?, his second work Suicide Made explores the passing of the legendary singer-songwriter KIM Kwang-seok, whose death was ruled a suicide by police in 1996. Featuring footage from the time of his death, interviews with his widow in the interceding years, and present time, the film questions the circumstances of the incident and, noting several irregularities, posits the theory that KIM may have been killed by his wife. Just as in his debut, LEE is present in much of the footage as the film chronicles what amounts to a personal quest for him to answer a long-unanswered question.

LEE’s style is similar to fellow investigative journalist CHOI Seung-ho (not to mention famed US documentarian Michael Moore), who also frequently appears on screen and isn’t scared of confrontation in his films Spy Nation and Criminal Conspiracy. Suicide Made was released on August 30 and has attracted 98,000 spectators (USD 705,000).

 

Already an acclaimed artist in different media, IM Heung-soon refocused his craft into feature filmmaking starting with Jeju Prayer in 2012 and then Factory Complex two years later, a work which explores the plight of part time workers in Korea, particularly from a female standpoint.

Expanding upon a video installation entitled Reincarnation, which was presented at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York among other prominent venues, Reborn once again focuses on the plight of marginalized women within a little known historical context. Exploring Korean ties with the Iran-Iraq and Vietnam Wars, the film gives voice to women as they detail their lives and ordeals. IM once again employs his trademarks, which include artistic abstractions in place of reenactments, while also giving his subjects a chance to perform. This follows his work beyond the screen, such as when he staged art workshops for several years for middle-aged women living in low-rent neighborhoods to afford them a chance to express themselves.

IM is at the forefront of Korea’s acclaimed trend of arthouse documentaries which have employed novel and memorable approaches to dissect shrouded aspects of Korean society. Other notable figures include Kelvin Kyung Kun PARK (A Dream of Iron, 2014) and JUNG Yoon-suk (Non-Fiction Diary, 2014; Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno, 2017). Reborn, which debuted in the Wide Angle section of the Busan International Film Festival, just like Factory Complex, is IM’s second film this year, following the North Korean defector-themed work Ryeohaeng, which premiered at BiFan during the summer.