Cecilia Kang is a screenwriter and filmmaker. She is the daughter of Korean parents, but born in Argentina. Living with this cultural duality led her to ask many questions about her identity and to seek answers in her films. In his first feature-length documentary, my last failure (BAFICI 2016, National Competition), takes an intimate look at the lives of three women from the Korean community on Argentine soil.
“That is one of the things I am interested in working on in my projects. I have my identity split in two and by cultures that are literally opposite. I always had to live with that. Every time I go to my parents’, I take off my shoes and suddenly, I become a Korean daughter who speaks and eats Korean. “Those dichotomies and complexities are sometimes full of contradictions,” Kang tells Live.
In his latest documentary, A ship left me, taking me away, stays on board that plan, but incorporates the story of Korean women who, in World War II, were used as sexual slaves by the Japanese army.
The comfort women or comfort women, that’s what the Japanese military called them. Inspired by a poem by Alejandra Pizarnik, where she writes “to explain with words from this world / that a ship left me carrying me,” Kang found a way to tell with sounds and images a traumatic event from her blood culture.
The film tries to do the exercise of reflecting through images and sounds on those things that are very painful to say.
Cecilia KangDocumentalist
“Thinking about a possible title, Virginia (Roffo, screenwriter of the film) named that poem. As the years went by and the research, analyzing those verses, it was said that perhaps they spoke of the impossibility of certain experiences in the world not being possible to explain with words. That are ungraspable. That’s where it closed me down,” she explains.
A ship left me taking me It had its premiere at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, and received several awards. Its commercial launch will be on July 4th at the Lugones venue (Teatro San Martín) and in Malba, and screenings are also planned in other provinces.
“The film tries to do the exercise of reflecting through images and sounds on those things that are very painful to decide.r,” explains Kang, who at times tries not to break down. Above all, when remembering the testimony of Kim Bok-dong, one of the survivors that she had the opportunity to hear in 2013, when she traveled to Korea for the second time.
A scene from A Ship Leaving Me Taking Me, Kang’s documentary.
“She told how, at 15 years old, along with 30 other women, They put her on a ship that set off on a journey to a destination not chosen. She told us about how she was raped more than 20 times a day. Of other women he saw die at his side. She spoke of the guilt she felt when she was finally able to return to her home, but others were not. And of the shame inflicted by a society on her, which made her remain silent until she was 60 years old.. It was shocking. It was seeing a grandmother tell everything she experienced. It is something that destroyed me and was the driving force to be able to make this film,” says Kang.
After a long silence, the director found a way to give voice to the survivors’ testimonies. Through the interpretation of actresses from the Korean community who were not so aware of these historical events, the young women were confronted with a tangential chapter of their history and in the same film moments of crying are reflected when reading what happened. Melanie, one of the protagonists, carries the common thread of the stories and amplifies what was experienced in the bodies of these women, as a way of exorcizing a past that was taboo in the postwar period.
“The need to make the film was to be able to make this issue visible, so that my friends who live here can also know about it and so can people from other latitudes,” says the director.
The first survivor who dared to speak out about sexual slavery did so at age 60, in 1991. They were silenced in their own country.
“The first survivor who dared to talk about this issue did so in ’91 at the age of 60. Not only did they suffer the atrocities they suffered, but they were silenced in their own country. There are many NGOs that fight for memory. These women suffered stigmatization from Korean society itself. A shame.”
-What was the biggest difficulty you had with this film?
-The obstacle I had is that it is an incomprehensible topic. An atrocious historical event and I did not have the tools to be able to tell a film that talks about this. The screenwriter’s proposal arose from questions: why not make a film that talks about that? How to talk about this topic as women who live in Argentina and especially me, being from the Korean community? What happens to the girls in the community when they bring this issue to the present? That was a great starting point.
Cecilia Kang says the Korean community gave her support for the documentary.
-Did returning to this bring you into conflict with the Korean community?
-On the contrary. My parents’ generation is the one that might feel more uncomfortable with these topics, but not the younger generations. It is a very strong issue and it must have historical compensation. It is part of South Korean history. The Korean community gave us all their support. What I take away from this work is the transformative possibility that people have, with time and education. When I came back from that trip and told my mom, we continued chatting or sometimes the topic came up for other things, that helped open my mind. That someone like my mother, who is 77 years old, also says that it is important for these things to be known, for me is an incredible achievement. It is important that we do not lose the ability to learn and change our ways of thinking.
