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The sight of a massive pig slaughter spurred by a nationwide foot-and-mouth disease alert had director HWANG Yun decide to pick up her camera and record the grim reality. Pork cutlets may have been a delicacy enjoyed at one time, but things totally change for her as she begins to take an interest in animal welfare. The film shifts between a factory farm where pigs are mass bred in brutal conditions and organic (animal welfare style) farms to highlight the significance of a natural ecosystem. During the course of observing the growth of alternative farm-raised piglet ‘Don-soo’, the director faces an unexpected dilemma that has her give up her meat-eating habit. She then starts to contemplate the issue of eating on a daily basis while her family refuses to give up on meat. This documentary poses introspection on the choice to co-exist through moderation instead of excessive consumption through a delicate exploration of animal rights and the reality of the meat-eating industry.

 

 

I was so happy and honored to be invited to such an amazing film festival. I heard about the Berlin Film Festival’s culinary cinema section while I was making this film, and thought that it would be great if I had a chance to show this film there. Never did I imagine I would actually receive an invitation. In Asia, there are twelve animal gods that take care of the human world and grant wishes, and I think it was the pig god that led me to this place, Since pigs are known to bring luck.

 

Among all the number of subjects out there, it’s always ‘people issues’ that seem to attract people’s attention. I thought at least someone should take interest in issues other than ‘people or humans’. And this is why I started to make films on these subjects. A large number of minorities and the socially disadvantaged live in this world, and I believe it is animals that suffer most with their rights taken away from them. Throughout the history of mankind, animals have always been exploited. However, it’s the advent of a capitalistic industrial society that intensified the relationship between the subjugator-subjugated. Many are pushed to the fringes and suffer in a society where money and profits are hailed as a priority. The situation is worse for animals that are robbed of their habitat, threatened with extinction, physically imprisoned and psychologically tortured. As I was making my documentary Farewell (2001) dealing with the life of wild animals caged in zoos, I was able to open my eyes for the time to he reality of animals. As I gazed through the camera at the sad eyes of tigers deprived of a wild life to live behind bars, I was swept with the desire to become an ‘interpreter’ who understood their language and told their stories to people. And by listening to their stories, they kept on telling me more. I’m thankful I’m destined to tell their stories through the language of humans and the language of cinema.

Quite a few people said they enjoyed the film. I guess they were interested in the fact that it is my story and my family’s story. Personal documentaries can be entertaining to the spectator, but extremely difficult for the filmmaker. I realized it’s more difficult to point the camera at myself and my family than other people. Throughout the film shoot, I had to contemplate and decide how much of my private life was going to be exposed. Nevertheless, it was a strategic choice of mine to go with this kind of story and approach. There are quite a number of films dealing with the enormous social issue of factory livestock and farm animals from a distance, but I wanted to go on a totally opposite path which is extremely private and subjective. I think the audience easily identified with the concerns and dilemmas of a woman who cooks meals each day for her child and family.

I didn’t want it to seem like a dichotomy between a meat-eater and a vegetarian. The choice is up to the audience. One can give up or reduce their meat-eating habit while others can continue eating meat, but choose to consume meat produced in an ethical manner. The important thing is taking interest in where our food, especially meat is coming from and how
it’s reaching our table. And most importantly, I hope people acknowledge the fact that meat came from life forms with emotions before it became an object of consumption. As long as humans are violent against animals, especially the ones we eat, violence and exploitation will continue in our world as our relationship with animals are projected onto the world of
humans. I hope people understand that our happiness is guaranteed by their happiness.

Yes. It doesn’t mean we’re all making the same choice when it comes to what we’re eating or not eating, but we’re now having a dialogue and discussing this subject. My family has realized that eating meat is not just a matter of personal choice, but a significant issue connected to various social sectors of our life, and that it is an ethical issue as well. This is an invaluable lesson we’ve learned though this film. Early in 2011, I began working on the film and it took me 3-4 years to complete it. My son was two years old at the time and now he is six. It seems as though it’s not just my son, but also myself that have grown with this film. Unresolved dilemmas and conflicts still exist, but they’re problems that can’t be solved just by making compromises within our family. The social system has to change, and for that we need to understand the core of the problem. We need to feel it with our hearts, not think it with our heads. And I hope An Omnivorous Family's Dilemma serves as a stepping stone for such change.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, it was a natural decision as ‘Don-soo’ was our film’s main character. It’s also an expression of respect and gratitude. I’m especially grateful to his mother ‘Ship-soon’. While I was developing the film, I was intending to place the focus on the piglet, but once I started shooting the film, I began feeling considerable sympathy towards the life of the mother pigs. As a female myself, I was heartbroken. Every mother pig had a different character. There were a few sensitive mother pigs at the farm where I shot the film, but ‘Ship-soon’ had an easy-going, gentle personality which helped when we were shooting close up to her. If it weren’t for ‘Ship-soon’, we couldn’t have made the film. Another reason for listing the pigs’ names in the credits is because I wanted to say that their lives, like humans, have their own meaning and character, that they are dignified beings in their own right.