The Front Line of Ideology(2024)

Kim Il Sung's Children(ko)

From 1950 to 1953, one hundred thousand children were orphaned by the Korean War. With no resources to mend the wounds, the two sides, North and South, took different paths to find homes and families for the war orphans. While the children of South Korea were sent to Europe and the United States through ‘International Adoption’, the children of North Korea were distributed across Eastern Europe through a method called ‘Commissioned Education’. As a result, more than five thousand children from the North had to spend nearly a decade living in foreign lands across Eastern Europe. This story is a record of their lives, which used to be kept hidden from the rest of the world. There is a key to understanding how North Korea's closed political structure began and how the ‘Juche ideology’ was formed in this documentary movie. Understanding North Korea in the 1950s is an important way to understand North Korea at present.

This Is Korea!(en)

John Ford's documentary about the early battles of the Korean War, shot in color.

Forbidden Fatherland(ko)

A documentary that deeply focuses and visits the trauma of Korea's modern history for 70 years through the life of a father whose family was indifferent.

Mrs. B., a North Korean Woman(ko)

Portrait of Mrs. B., a tough charismatic North Korean woman who smuggles between North Korea, China and South Korea. With the money she gets, she plans to reunite with her two North Korean sons after years of separation.

206: Unearthed(ko)

After the dissolution of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was launched as a South Korean government organization in 2005, civic groups and bereaved families wishing to complete the mission the government had failed to accomplish form a joint organization to investigate the remains of civilians who were massacred during the Korean War. A three-year-long documentary about the organization’s three-year-long excavation efforts, 206: Unearthed is a record of sunlight, dirt, and sweat.

My Father's Emails(ko)

The director's father, who did not know how to use a computer, left her an autobiography via email. It includes his whole life through many notable events such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, 88's Seoul Olympic, New Town Development, etc.

Combat in the Air - Air War Over Korea(en)

The Border City 2(ko)

In 2003 Song Du-yul, a philosophy professor, decides to go back to his homeland after spending thirty-seven years in Germany. Within a week after crossing the border, his reputation falls from a respected global political figure to an infamous communist spy. During a five-year-long trial, he was arrested and held in custody. This throws Korean society into turmoil and brings a big conflict between the Conservative and the Progressive parties. The filmmaker calmly contemplates this long period of the incident in detail and depicts a society with an indifferent manner. The story builds through an accretion of whimsical facts and it sometimes brings up uncomfortable truths which will irritate viewers. This film is a camera inside of us that evokes what viewers may have tried to forget.

One Warm Spring Day(ko)

DMZ, The Wild(ko)

4-Part documentary series where Lee Min Ho films over a 700-day period in the DMZ to capture nature and animals. Untouched by humans for over half a century, DMZ’s nature would be close to how this land would look when the civilization disappears. Nature and wilderness breathe here freely, and endangered species have made the place their habitat. With the narration of actor Lee Min-ho, the documentary reveals the beauty of Korea’s nature in its rawest and purest form. Here, there is a silent land where humans stepped down. It is a military demarcation line between North and South. It is the foremost front that consumed two-thirds of the 37-month Korean War, and the DMZ, a military operation area that has not been available for more than 60 years since the armistice. It is the largest temperate primeval forest on Earth, where human history of heartbreak and the wild survival of wild animals coexist.

Crossing the Line(en)

In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. He became a star of the North Korean propaganda machine, but then disappeared from the face of the earth. Now, after 45 years, the story of James Dresnok, the last American defector in North Korea, is being told for the first time. Crossing the Line follows Dresnok as he recalls his childhood, desertion, and life in the DPRK.

The 2nd Repatriation(ko)

In 2000, in the era of inter-Korean reconciliation, 63 non-converted prisoners were repatriated to the North, and a 2nd repatriation movement was launched in 2001 but failed again and again in later years. As of 2022, the average age of the surviving secondary repatriation applicants is 91.

Spy Nation(ko)

YU Wooseong who had been working as a civil servant is on trial for espionage following his sibling’s confession. A reporter who has been laid off begins following the traces of a spy story manipulated by a government agency. The clues lead to a confession and false evidence that society and the press have turned their back on.

Memory of Forgotten War(en)

Unknown or forgotten by most Americans, the Korean War divided a people with several millenniums of shared history. Memory of Forgotten War conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of four Korean American survivors whose experiences and memories embrace the full circle of the war: its outbreak and the day-to-day struggle for survival, separation from family members across the DMZ, the aftermath of a devastated Korean peninsula, and immigration to the United States. Each person reunites with relatives in North Korea conveying beyond words the meaning of four decades of family loss. Their stories belie the notion that war ends for civilians when the guns are silenced and foreshadow the futures of countless others displaced by ongoing military conflict today.

Alene Duerk: First Woman to Make Admiral(en)

This short film tells the story of Alene B. Duerk, the first woman to earn the rank of Admiral in the U.S. Navy. Admiral Duerk served in World War II and during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. After retiring, she went on to deliver meals to the elderly before passing away in her late 90s.

기억의 유산(ko)

Korea: The Never-Ending War(en)

Shedding new light on a geopolitical hot spot, the film — written and produced by John Maggio and narrated by Korean-American actor John Cho — confronts the myth of the “Forgotten War,” documenting the post-1953 conflict and global consequences.

Homes Apart: Korea(ko)

They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90s, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in North Korea, filmmakers Takagi and Choy reveal the personal, social and political dimensions of one of the last divided nations on earth. The film was also the first US project to get permission to film in both South & North Korea.

Frank Maselskis: From WWII POW to Chosin Reservoir Survivor(en)

Frank Maselskis was a prisoner of war in World War II. Despite the horrible experiences of being a prisoner Frank decides to join in the Korean War, where he participates in the battle of Chosin, a brutal combat that took place in the most extreme weather conditions.

Rudy Hernandez: Congressional Medal of Honor(en)

Mexican American Rodolfo P. Hernandez faced death along the 38th parallel, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor for valor during the Korean War. A story of heroism, perseverance and service, Hernandez proved that even in the most dire circumstances a wounded soldier can accomplish his mission and go on to greater service as a veteran.