Our Blue Waves (working title)

Director JANG Minkyung | Producer LEE Eunji | Korea | 80min | Delivery Date: October 2025

Project Description

Production Schedule

Synopsis

Minkyung knocks on the door of a building in Euljiro. 'Padoson'(meaning Wave-hand), is a human rights organization for and by people with mental disabilities. There, Minkyung hopes to find a way to understand her parents, who live in isolation with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Minkyung has just received a call from her mother asking her to live with her. Minkyung films the Padoson activists and becomes a colleague of theirs. As she recounts her memories of her parents and her own depression, the activists share their stories. Their experiences with prescription drugs and acute illness repeated hospitalizations and deep isolation, and the process of recovery are intertwined with stories of countless disconnected and connected relationships. Based on these stories, Minkyung works with them to recreate memories with an 8mm film camera. The reimagined memories, based on open dialogues, cause bound emotions to collide and change. Finally, Minkyung travels back to her hometown Tongyeong to face her parents, who have been trying to hide their symptoms by hiding prescription drugs deep in the old closet.

Director's Note

South Korean society has a very poor understanding of people with mental disabilities and their families. This lack of understanding is linked to social stigma, discrimination, and violence against human rights, which leads to isolation. As a child who couldn’t understand the words 'schizophrenia' and 'bipolar affective disorder', the director also had to live with parents who change personalities frequently without any explanation and stopped talking about them to other people. Through the director's communication with various members of 'Padoson,' a human rights organization run by people with mental disabilities, the film seeks to understand their experiences and restore their relationships, and raise awareness of the social responsibility of care by capturing the perspectives of the families of people with mental disabilities. We want to draw a better society by joining hands in <Our Blue Waves>, just like the meaning of ‘Padoson', which is to join hands when the mind waves.

	She is interested in living with death and illness in a social and personal context. Her first feature documentary, <Life Goes On> is about social tragedies and mourning and premiered at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in 2021.		Her first feature documentary <Danser avec Montaigne>(2014) is about her mother and the anxiety of life, or life itself. She served on the 416ACT Media Committee and worked as a writer on <Life Goes On> which was directed by Minkyung Jang.
Director  JANG Minkyung		Producer  LEE Eunji