[2005]

Dear Pyongyang

Director: YANG Yonghi

2005 Japanese, Korean Subtitled in - Color Video 107 min

Editing: Nakawoo Akane
Sound, Music: Inumaru Masahiro
Producer: Inaba Toshiya		   Contact Name: CHEON
2-33-7-105, Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0053 JAPAN
Phone: 81-3-5350-7534
Fax: 81-3-5350-6324
E-mail: info@cheon.jp
URI: www.cheon.jp

[Festivals and prizes] Pusan 2005, Special Mention at Yamagata IDFF 2005, Seoul Indie Doc Festival 2005, Sundance Int’l Competition 2006, Berlin (Forum) 2006 and others

[Synopsis] A second generation zainichi Korean director makes inquiries about the history of her activist father and mother. Over the years she records on video visits to her three brothers and their families, who migrated from Ikuno, Osaka to Pyongyang over thirty years ago, while reflecting on how she had been running away from the values her father forced upon her. She examines her ideological differences with her parents through the dialogue of making a film, and work them out, sincerely but with humour as well. In this way new family ties are knit. Now, mother and daughter look after the bedridden father together. The sight of the father weeping for his “homeland” from his hospital room will pierce the hearts of viewers.


YANG Yonghi

Born in Osaka, Yang Yonghi is a second generation “zainichi” Korean. After receiving a master's degree from The New School in New York, she worked as a teacher and theatrical actress, then became a radio personality. Since 1995, she started actively making films, mainly documentaries such as What Is Chima-Jeogori? and The Swaying Spirit, which were broadcast on NHK (Japan). She has also worked as a field reporter for TV news programs such as TV Asahi's News Station, and has provided long-term, on-the-spot video coverage from Thailand, Bangladesh, China and various other Asian countries. Beginning in 1997, she spent six years in New York during which time she filmed various ethnic communities, and resumed work in Japan in 2003.