Pansy and Ivy
KOREA / 2000 / Korean / Color / Video / 60 min
Director, Editing, Producer: Kye Un-kyoung
Photography: Kye Un-kyoung, Park Jee-won
Sound: Lee Sung-chul
Source: Kye Un-kyoung
Soo-young-gu, Namchun1dong
New Beach Apt. 50, 9dong 1405ho, Pusan KOREA
Phone: 82-16-582-2533
E-mail: belle272@hanmail.net
Soo-jung and Yun-jung are sisters in their 20s and 30s, both physically challenged since birth. Like other women, romance, sex, marriage, and having children are concerns in their lives. The filmmaker records their social life with a close but unpatronizing gaze, as they fall in love, break up, study porn videos, and dream about having their own children. Conventional Korean values die hard, as we see from the voices of the people around them, while the sisters themselves never cease to smile, to sing, and to try to enjoy life despite the odds.
[Director’s Statement] Generally speaking, the able-bodied don’t really know how they should look at the disabled. This could well be because of their prejudices against the disabled and because they have never actually had direct contact with a disabled person. That was the thought with which I began this documentary. Most of the documentaries that have been made about the disabled up until now have been about the difficulties of their lives or have portrayed a story about some success they have had. But I thought I would just try to show the everyday lives of disabled people through Soojung and Yun-jung. I did not want to focus on their disabilities, but rather I wanted to show Soo-jung and Yun-jung as two women who dream of getting married. The every day life of two women who are trying hard to realize their dream... My main purpose in making this documentary was that I want the audience to feel closer to the lives of these two women.
Kye Un-kyoung
Born 1972 in Pusan, Korea. Entered Pusan’s Kyoung-Sung University, Dept. of Theater and Cinema in 1991. Entered Brooklyn College of New York University in 1996. From 1996 to 1998, directed many educational talk shows and short documentaries for the American PBS TV, including “Teen Violence on Television” and “TV as an Education Tool”. MFA in TV documentary production in 1998. Returned to Korea in July 1999. Lectured extensively on documentary production and film appreciation. Member of the organizing committee and pre-selection committee for the Pusan Asian Short Film Festival since 1999. Joined Pusan Film Critics Association and Pusan Independent Film Association in 1999. Professor at Pusan Arts Cultural University. |