THE FILMS - KOREAN SPRING

Jeon Soo-il GEOMEN TANGYI SONYEO OI / WITH THE GIRL OF BLACK SOIL screenplay: Jeon Soo-il photography: Kim Sung-tai editing: Suh Yong-duk music: Gae Soo-jung art direction: Lee Young-hun sound: Lee sung-chul cast: Yu Yun-min, Jo Yung-jin, Park Hyun-woo production: Dongnyuk, Chinguitty Films distribution: Dongnyuk, Chinguitty Films year: 2007 running time: 89’ An former miner, after an accident, is fired from his company without any compansation pay and can’t find another job. He then tries to enter a hospital that treats people with job-related illnesses, but he does not qualify...he begins to drink, sniff glue and so on, in a crescendo of suicidal impulses. He has two children, a twelve year-old son with a mental handicap and a ten year-old daughter who takes care of everything; aside from going to school, she cooks, keeps the house clean and tends to her father. In her spare time, she flies a kite, a memory of her mother... Presented in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, this countryside drama reveals the strong moral tension present in the cinema of Jeon, who—by centering attention on the misery of a Korea far away from the shining lights of modernity through the memorable portrait of daughter courage—generates comparison with the classics of Neorealism.

Jeon Soo-il Born in Sokcho in 1959, having completed his studies in the Department of Theater and Cinema of the University of Kyungsung in Pusan, he continued his education from 1987 to 1992 at the ESRA and at the University of Paris 7 and 8 in France. Since 1995 he has made various short and medium length features such as Ask the Horse (1995), Wind Echoing in My Being (1996), Pause on the Road (1997). With his second full length feature film The Bird Who Stops in the Air (1999), he won the Grand Prize at the Festival of Fribourg. Founder of the independent production company Dongnyunk, he teaches at University of Kyungsung.