Event

2007-10-01 And Thereafter II

Directed by Hosup Lee (2006, 56 min, Color, Video, SOUTH KOREA/USA) Korean w/ English subtitles. Ajuma thrives on self-sufficiency: she cooks, cleans, and takes care of herself. A widow, she lives in southern New Jersey and paints, or reads quietly, to pass the time. She has no visitors, or phone calls, and she certainly doesn't need a stranger intruding in on her to capture her harrowing life's story as a former prostitute to U.S. servicemen in the Korean War.

Contained within this incredibly self-possessed individual, we discover, is a fiery, opinionated voice on all matters relating to men, marriage, and alienation from both the Korean and American communities. Ajuma speaks in raw, unpunishing detail about her childhood in Korea, the abuse she suffered at the hands of the military, and life immigrating to the United States with an American man.

AND THEREAFTER II, the second installment in filmmaker Hosup Lee's trilogy on the lives of Korean women in the aftermath of the Korean War, is less a documentary film than a compelling personal interview with a subject whose wit is dry as a bone, and language as unfiltered as her views. Ajuma is a figure who will stay with audiences long after they leave the theater.

Preceded by
STUTTER (2006, 13 min, Color, Video, USA)
Directed by Janice Ahn
One young woman's night spent with an admiring stranger on New Year's Eve goes terribly awry.