BYUN Young-joo is a representative female director who comes from documentary filmmaking. She was part of director [KIM Dong-won]’s [PURN Production], and also was a founding member of the feminist film collective, [Bariteo]. She is well known for the series <Habitual Sadness>, which deal with “comfort women,” the women who were forcibly taken by the Japanese government during World War II to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army. Through the series, BYUN ask...More

BYUN Young-joo is a representative female director who comes from documentary filmmaking. She was part of director [KIM Dong-won]’s [PURN Production], and also was a founding member of the feminist film collective, [Bariteo]. She is well known for the series <Habitual Sadness>, which deal with “comfort women,” the women who were forcibly taken by the Japanese government during World War II to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army. Through the series, BYUN asks what it means to live as a woman in Asia and turn the viewer’s eyes to a chapter in history that had been distorted or omitted altogether. The <Habitual Sadness> series, which has the distinction of being the first documentary to be premiered on a large theater screen in Korea, resonated widely and deeply the viewers in Korea and overseas. Her first fiction film <Ardor>(2002) portrayed a woman’s suppressed emotions caught in an extramarital affair. She also directed <Flying Boys> in 2004 that cast an exceptional number of young actors. Less