japanese
New Docs Japan
  • The Ants
  • Campaign
  • Ghada: Songs of Palestine
  • People Crossing the River
  • A Permanent Part-timer in Distress
  • The Women the War Left Behind
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    People Crossing the River

    (“Kawa o wataru hitobito”)
    - KOREA, JAPAN / 2000–2010 / Japanese, Korean / Color / Video / 113 min / Subtitled in English

    Director, Photography, Producer: Kim Duk-chul
    Editing: Kim Duk-chul, Watanabe Yukio
    Music: Kim Young-dong
    Theme Song: Jang Sa-ik
    Calligraphy: Shindo Kaneto
    Cooperation with: Kindai Eiga Kyokai, Sogang University Graduate School, Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
    Production Companies: KJ Film
    World Sales: JINJIN Pictures

    In Kawasaki, where factories in which Koreans were forced to work during the war still stand, four Japanese and Koreans confront Korean-Japanese history and struggle toward building a cultural bridge that crosses the generations. Third-year high-school student Takagi Kumiko takes part in a homestay exchange program with students from Bucheon, Korea. The Reverend Sekita Hiroo continues his 30-year struggle for coexistence and human rights. Second-generation zainichi Song Bu-ja performs a one-woman show celebrating her own three-generation family history, having overcome experiences of discrimination. And Kim Kyung-suk faces the last fight of his life in court.


    [Director’s Statement] This work, about Korea and Japan, the long road traveled by the people of the two countries, and the young people of both countries who are about to embark on a new journey, expresses the lives and emotions of the four protagonists, without narration, in a manner that crosses the boundary between narrative film and documentary.


    - Kim Duk-chul

    A graduate in cinema of the College of Art, Nihon University, Kim was the cinematographer for narrative films such as Yun’ s Town (dir. Kim Woo-sung, 1989) and the Japanese segments of the fourteen-and-a-half-hour epic documentary The Journey (dir. Peter Watkins, 1987), which spanned thirteen countries. He received awards from Kinema Junpo and the Mainichi Film Concours for his first documentary, The River of Reconciliation (1994), which he photographed and co-directed (with Mori Yasuyuki). He currently teaches film at Sogang University’s graduate school in Korea.

    * This web page is updated version. link YIDFF 2007 version