Farewell
Jakbyeol
KOREA / 2001 / Korean / Color / Video / 84 min
Director, Script, Photography, Editing, Sound, Producer: Hwang Yun
Music: Kim Dong-bum
Source: Hwang Yun
608-401 HyunDai Apt. Kkum-maul
Guin-dong Dongan-gu Anyang-shi Kyung-ki-do KOREA
Phone: 82-17-727-7636
E-mail: ecofilm@chollian.net, sailor21@hanmail.net
Hae-jin is a young woman who volunteers to work in the zoo’s predatory animal department. A weak and timid tiger cub is born. His mother, long separated from the wilderness, refuses to nurse him, and the zoo-keepers are forced to raise him. Naming him Krane, Hae-jin treats him like a puppy and watches over his slow growth throughout the months of her volunteer work shift.
Young-jun is a veterinarian who volunteers rescuing injured wild animals. He begins to question the future of the ecosystem as he witnesses countless numbers of animals injured or dead from gunshot wounds and man-laid traps. The two stories together address the complex issues involved in the co-existence of humans and wild animals in this contemporary age.
[Director’s Statement] This documentary is about the captive animals, wild animals and the people taking care of them that I have met during last winter. I tried not to add any kind of exaggerations to the film and show true lives of these animals. Unfortunately the lives of these animals that I witnessed through making this film were full with pain and unhappiness. This is the reality of the animals living in Korea right now. But the story of unhappy animals is not just in my country. Indeed, it is everywhere in the world. These animals are being tortured more and more and disappearing from this planet faster than ever.
I made this film out of guilt of being a human who put these animals into such misery. Throughout the time I had spent with the animals, I have realized that they are not just mere creatures of physical beings but they are creatures with emotions and souls. Even at the very moments of their suffering, they helped me to realize many things.
Hwang Yun
Born in 1972 in Seoul. Majored in English Literature at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul. Independent filmmaker. Worked as assistant director on Meat, The Natural Beings and A Star Story (all 1997). Director of A Piece of Advice at a Bus Stop and Red and Yellow Leaves (both 1998) and A Winter Night Story (2000), which has been shown at numerous festivals including the 26th Korean Indie & Short Film Festival. |