When Words Return
Korea | Film 100min | 4K | Color+B&W
Logline
Tracing the films left behind Heo Young, the words of three Koreans swallowed by the Pacific War slowly return.
Synopsis
Even amid war, people can summon strength beyond imagination. During the Pacific War, Heo Young was mobilized into a Japanese propaganda unit, making imperialist films. Cho Moon-sang became a guard at a POW camp. Noh Subok was taken as far as Thailand as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese military. When the war ended, all three remained stranded abroad — yet none let go of their will to live to the very last.
Director's Statement
When Words Return restores the lost words of three Koreans caught in the machinery of Japanese imperialism: Heo Young, a director who made propaganda films for the Japanese military; Cho Moon-sang, executed as a war criminal; and Noh Subok, forced into sexual slavery as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese military. Through footage Heo Young left behind, the film approaches what he failed to record, the faces he never saw, and truths pushed outside the frame. Without minimizing what these individuals did, it asks audiences to sit with the complexity of the historical position each figure occupied.
Director JUNG Su-eun
Director JUNG Su-eun majored in documentary filmmaking at the Korea National University of Arts and has continued to explore the scars of war and historical memories in her films. When Words Return is her third feature-length documentary.
Producer KIM Sungkyung
Producer KIM Sungkyung is a cultural sociologist who majored in film. She is interested in how the division of the Korean Peninsula and its wars are represented and remembered. When Words Return is her first work as a producer.