Yang Yong-hi

Dear Pyongyang

Yang Yong-hi

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

Sona, mo hitori no watashi

Yang Yong-hi

Documentary focuses on Sona, the daughter of the director’s brother who moved to North Korea from Japan in the early 1970s. Through Sona, the film shows the generation that migrated from Japan to North Korea and their offspring who were born and raised in North Korea.

수프와 이데올로기

Yang Yong-hi

Yang Yong-hi

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang (YIDFF 2005), carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

かぞくのくに

Yang Yong-hi

Sakura Andō, Arata Iura

From the late 1950s through the '70s, more than 90,000 of the ethnic Koreans in Japan emigrated to North Korea, a country that promised them affluence, justice, and an end to discrimination. KAZOKU NO KUNI tells the story of one of their number, who returns for just a short period. For the first time in 25 years, Sonho is reunited with his family in Tokyo after being allowed to undergo an operation there. Sonho’s younger sister Rie is at the centre of the film, and is not hard to recognise as the director’s alter-ego. In her documentaries DEAR PYONGYANG and SONA, THE OTHER MYSELF, Yang Yonghi told the story of her own life, and how, at age six, she experienced the departure of her three older brothers, who left their family for Pyongyang.

굿바이, 평양

Yang Yong-hi

Yang Yong-hi

"Goodbye, Pyeongyang" is co-production between South Korea and Japan Synopsis Director Yonghi Yang’s previous piece, “Dear Pyeong Yang”, has told of North Korean tales. This time, he brings in “Sun-hwa”, the sister of a brother who migrated to North Korean from Japan in the beginning of the 1970s. Through “Sun-hwa”, it shows the images of the immigrant generation as well as the generation that was born and raised in North Korea. Although ‘Sun-hwa’s growth stages are very typical, the specialty of the North Korean society is quietly shown. Through the process of establishing her identity in the North Korean society as an immigrant generation, North Korea isn’t portrayed as simply an unsociable society but as an area on earth which hold the universal image of the human society. This may be said to be producer “Yang”s special merit. The picture of family gives a normal everyday life view of the known-to-be different name, North Korea.