Sky-blue Hometown
Ha-neol-sack Go-hyang
KOREA / 2001 / Korean, Russian / Color, B&W / 35mm / 93 min
Director, Script, Editing, Producer: Kim So-young
Photography: Nikolay Gerasimov
Sound: Soh Won-jong
Music: Kim Jun-sung, Hyun Duck
Production Company, Source: CINE-MAYA
A-302 Hansol-town, 17-7 Guwal 2-dong
Namdong-gu Inchon KOREA
Phone & Fax: 82-32-464-9259
E-mail: ksy0418@yahoo.co.kr, jipshin@hotmail.com
URL: www.skybluehometown.com
Through the story and paintings of second generation Korean-Russian artist Nikolai Shin (Shin Soonnam), the forgotten tragedy of Stalin's 1937 forced migration policy comes alive. Korean-Russians were forced to board relocation trains to unknown destinations, sometimes for more than 20 days without food or lavatories. Then-nine-year-old Nikolai Shin and other survivors painfully recall the tales from their youth, how children and old people were the first to die. A documentary of a grand scale, shot on 35mm by a first-time Korean female filmmaker barely 30 years old, this is truly a rare jewel.
[Director’s Statement] I wanted to convey the earnest wishes and lost dreams of the victims, rather than render a bleak ambiance of the hurt and resentment endured by Koreans as a minority race in the former Soviet Union and Central Asia at the present time.
Kim So-young
Born in 1968 in Seoul. Graduated from Hankook University of Foreign Studies in 1992, where she majored in French literature. Experience includes work as the assistant director for the documentary film Tail of City, the scriptor for fiction film The Nail in 1994, the assistant director in fiction film Coup d’Etat in 1996. Sky-Blue Hometown won the Grand Prize in the Seoul International Documentary Video & Film Festival, and was honored as the best Korean documentary at the Pusan International Film Festival. |