Why do I do this?

Why do I do this?

Seven years ago the Pusan International Film Festival ended another week of screening films but for Seo Eun-Ju, an independent film maker, the process of trying to screen her film was a life changing experience.

The theme for her controversial film “Bab, Got, Yang” (“Rice, Flower,Goat”) was the first of its kind to explore the rights of female workers.

She has been making independently funded and produced documentaries for over ten years on the inequality and under-appreciation of the Korean working class.

“In middle school I wanted to be a communist” she said. “I found a book of poetry once and the words held a special meaning for me”. She grew up in a working class environment during South Korea’s difficult transition from war torn country, through military dictatorship to blossoming democracy

Eun-Ju is 35 years old and a proud, unmarried feminist. After university she worked as an assistant producer and witnessed the constant manipulation of stories to promote the company’s viewpoint and disregard what she believed were the real stories affecting Korean people.

Her first independent film “Phung-Hen-Son” (“Parallels”) about female workers and the problems they faced started her on the path of revealing the everyday factory worker’s struggle. “I was fascinated by how these people manage to survive” she said.

Trying to understand those with difficult lives would be an underlying theme in her early films.

In 2000 she joined the Labor Arts Network (L.A.R.N.E.T.), an independently funded team she felt ideologically connected to.

Her most passionate film “Bab,Got,Yang” began in 1997 when the Asian economic crisis hit Korea. Under the supervision of the International Monetary

Fund the government began an experiment inside the Hyundai Motor Corporation to restructure and retrench over 8,000 employees.

The unions protested this restructure and after intense negotiations reached an agreement that only 277 would lose their jobs and 144 were female cafeteria workers.

Her documentary focused on these women who had conducted hunger strikes and protests. They were given union promises they would be rehired once the experiment was completed.

That year Hyundai recorded a 300 trillion Won profit and the women were rehired as subcontractors but at 60% of their previous wage. Their protests continued and eventually a deal was reached with most women continuing to work in exchange for jobs for their children.

As “Bab,Got,Yang” neared completion, the workers and unions became concerned the film’s release could be damaging.

Eun-Ju, as director, argued the film should be shown to let people know what had happened. The film was entered at the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) but due to union pressure PIFF refused to show the film and cancelled its entry.

Eun-Ju and her team gave many interviews trying to bring attention to the film and its message and after fighting for the right to show their film, PIFF finally agreed.

When she attempted to show her film at other festivals including the Human Rights Film Festival in Korea they also denied its entry angering Eun-Ju.

After six months of fighting to have the film screened the public attention eventually died and the country lost interest.

The negative reaction to her film depressed Eun-Ju. What she viewed as suppression in a democracy by the government and unions was the message she was trying to convey in the film. She believed the film should be allowed to be screened. “I didn’t make this film for money or fame. I just wanted to show there are people out there who are being mistreated.”

“Maybe I was naive back then. I believed I could make a film that would help a lot of people. But even the people I tried to help turned against me.”

The film eventually screened only 50 times at universities and requested public viewings. It is still shown to university students and labor unions and has been referred to by academics as the first film that accurately revealed the Korean class system.

Eun-Ju has not spoken to the press since 2000. Her work on this film changed her thinking and reinforced her opinions on the Korean press. “There is no free press here. There never was.” she said.

Eun-Ju has never completed another major film. She is now working near the demilitarized zone as a live broadcast director at a television station there. She is working to repay her family and friends the money she had to borrow to make her films.


October 20th 2007

Andrew Cater

5 months ago

5 months ago

Five months ago Lee-DongHee started working at ‘News Bar’ in downtown Gumi city. This was her first job since leaving University with a Degree in History.

Dong-Hee started working there a little late. Now thirty-three she could not get a job in her field of study. “I just sat at home and watched TV” she embarrassingly admits.

She is the only woman out of three others working at the bar who speaks moderately good English. “I only use my English with Japanese or Taiwanese businessmen.” She says.

Korea has thousands of cocktail bars that cater to businessmen who like to drink expensive whisky. Most bars are staffed with attractive young girls in their twenties who stand behind the bar table and serve drinks and provide light conversation with the men who visit there.

Customers start to trickle in around 9pm and stay until 3 or 4 am. After drinking whisky straight for hours without break she usually is heavily intoxicated by 3am. “I get so drunk every night I am always sick in the morning.

Dong-Hee works for eight hours a day seven days a week and earns around 700,000 Korean won a month. ($895.00 AUS).

She does not get much daylight time. It’s usually spent sleeping and getting over the previous nights heavy drinking. What time she does get before work is spent reading books or studying English.

“I do have a boyfriend now” She reveals. “He is a regular customer.” Her boyfriend is a Taiwanese engineer working in Gumi. “He was always very nice to me and he always bought me nice gifts when he visited.

About two months ago I became his girlfriend.” Dong-Hee and her boyfriends relationship occurs only at the bar. “I work nights and he works days so the only time we see each other is when he comes here” she says. They have not been on a real date outside the bar at all. When Dong-hee is busy with customers he just sits by himself and drinks his beer.

But not all of her customers have been nice. In 5 months of work at the bar she has had 5 different stalkers. “They are fine at first and I let them walk me home after work because the streets are dangerous. But after a while they tell me they love me and when I don’t feel the same they start acting weird.” Men have showed up outside her apartment late at night trying to ask her out. So far none have been physically dangerous.

After the first stalker she was not deterred from her job. “Even after the fifth stalker I still let them walk me home.” “It’s part of my job to be nice.”

Andrew Cater 2007