SYNOPSIS

In May 1994, 15 grandmothers, carrying rice and
 kimchi with them, left for Japan to make their voice
 heard on the issues of negotiation. This film is the
 record of struggles carried on by the victims of comfort
 women who broke themselves off from the half-centurylong
 silence to retain dignity and to recover tarnished
 reputation.

PROGRAM NOTE

 What if everyone had their own understanding and
 ideas on the problem that we all have believed in
 understanding and even sharing similar opinions?
 How are we supposed to respond to this situation?
 Or what would be the most precarious thing for us
 to consider this situation? The issues of Japan\'s
 wartime sex slaves, or \'comfort women\' has been
 recognized, understood and discussed on the
 framework of nationalism, a self-evident framework
 that has never been questioned. The problematic on
 \'comfort women\' is not just a nation-crossing problem
 on cololian rules, but a place and history involving
 issues of militarism, patriarchy, social status of sex
 trafficking/sex labor, and etc. On top of those notions,
 this documentary <침묵> exposes the bloackage
 that the order of nationalism, a post-war creation of
 Asian nation-states, hindered on the understanding
 of tales of \'comfort women\' on the whole. We cannot
 be too precarious to make any attempts to simplify
 complicated recognition in terms of nationalism or any
 other new frameworks. It is the request for a whole
 new problem for us to consider; it is the emergence
 of a framework that helps us to recognise problems
 ever residing everywhere now in action on the level
 of social understanding. Let\'s embrace the blurred
 borders with open arms, and pay our utmost attention
 to the history, conflicts, wounds, and unheared voices
 on the screen. [HWANG Miyojo]