Synopsis The film takes us on a journey to Paju, a town on the border between North and South Korea. There we follow the German-Korean filmmaker, whose fam-ily once fled from North Korea to the South, as she encounters the inhabitants of Paju and accompanies them in their daily lives – along and with the border: These include: a tour guide, who daily escorts foreign tourists to the border; the manager of a huge cemetery for North Korean refugees, whose own family roots lie in North Korea; a North Korean who only recently fled to the South, leaving behind her family in North Korea; and a young editor who publishes books on North Korea, although the topic is of little personal inter-est to him. In its encounters with these and other residents, the film renders a perceptive portrait of a country whose division has left a deep imprint in the lives of its inhabitants.

A documentary by Susanne Mi-Son Quester

A German-Korean filmmaker travels to the border between North and South Korea, to the town of Paju, where she encounters its residents, and their various attitudes toward the division of their country. In these meetings, an inner division also emerges — between the generations, their experiences and wishes for the future.

파주 PAJUTHE INNER DIVISION

The Korean division and the town Paju

Freedom Road ending at DMZ

The division of Korea is a product of the Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953. Though a truce ended the war, to this day the two ideologically opposed nations have not signed a peace treaty. Unlike the former situation in divided Germany, for more than 70 years, the Korean border has prevented any exchange of private correspondence or visits from relatives.In 1996, the town Paju was founded directly on the border. The trauma of the Korean War left a persistent sense of danger, which inhibited the population of the region. It took the “Freedom Road” — designed to eventually connect North and South Korea — to literally pave the way for a civil infrastructure in the border region. Today, more than 400,000 people live in Paju.

Technical data shooting format HD 16:9 color

running time 78 minutes

language version Korean and German with English subtitles

screening format DCP, BluRay

Sojin was born in Paju and has been hearing jokes about the North Korean nuclear program since she was a school girl. “Most members of my gener-ation are for reunification, yet they’d rather not witness it themselves,” says the 23-year-old. They fear the economic and political repercussions of such a profound change. But her own opinion was changed by her new job: at a cemetery for refugees from North Korea, where she deals daily with people who have lost their homeland.

Mr. Lee is the manager of the Cemetery of the Exiled. As the son of North Korean refugees, he was born, so to speak, into the Association of Displaced North Koreans. He had been indoctrinated with an unthinking desire for reunification. In his eyes, near-term reunification of Korea is both possible and necessary.

Ms. Pi works as a tour guide for a South Korean travel operator that offers tours along the Inner Korean border. Almost daily, she escorts international tourist groups to the DMZ – Koreans, she says, show little interest in this region. At her company, Ms. Pi is also in charge of plans for the time after possible reunification.

The Protagonists

Sojin Hwang Cemetery of the Exiled staff

Mr. Lee Cemetery of the Exiled manager

Ms. Pi DMZ tour guide

Ms. Baek fled from North Korea to South Korea, via China. Her initial aim in China was only to earn a little money to support her family. As that brief trading excursion evolved into a ten-year stay, she became estranged from her family. Finally, after internment in a penal camp – North Koreans residing illegally in China are regularly rounded up by the authorities and deported back to North Korea – the contact broke off for good. Now, her sole link to her old homeland is a painful loss...

Ki Byung (30) is employed at a publishing house for nonfiction books. Although North Korea is a regular concern in his job as an editor, the topic does not interest him. The country has been divided too long – and the ideo-logical training he underwent during military service was too hollow. He does not feel that his generation has any kind of responsibility for a Korean unity. “The country has been divided since 1945. The division was brought about by the previous generation – actually, it was even the one before that. It’s no longer our history.”

Ullim attends third grade at Tongil Primary School, in Paju. “Tongil” is Korean for “reunification”. Yet although the topic is frequently dealt with in class, he does not really know what it means. Ullim plays the piano, likes comics and computer games. If he could choose a travel destination, it would be Australia – he doesn’t imagine a trip to North Korea being very interesting.

Ullim primary school pupil

Ki Byung Sung editor

Ms. Baek social worker from North Korea

Susanne Mi-Son Quester director/producer

Susanne Mi-Son Quester was born in Starnberg, Germany, in 1979, to a Korean mother and a German father. After training as a cellist, she studied documentary filmmaking at the University for Television and Film (HFF) in Munich. With a grant from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), she spent 2004/05 at the Korean National University of Arts (KNUA) in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2006, she has worked as an author, filmmaker, and curator of film programs.

Filmography (excerpt)

2012 Heidis Land creative documentary, Super16, 48minTrento Film Festival, Duisburger Filmwoche, Munich Underdox Festival

2010 EIKI — vielleicht nach Japan children’s documentary, WDR, 10min2009 Hotel Arnold fictional short, 16mm, 15min2007 DIENSTAG and ein

bißchen mittwochdocumentary, 16mm, 40minMunich STARTER Film Award

2005 Suguru creative documentary, 15min2003 5 Minuten Rußland short, 8min, Nonfiktionale Bad Aibling,

ARRI Camera Award2002 Finow short, 16mm, 7min

interfilm Berlin, Audience Award, Festival du Courtmétrage de Bruxelles, Prix Canal+, DOK Leipzig

Interview with the filmmaker

Interview: Florian Geierstanger

You already made one film in South Korea: DIENSTAG UND EIN BISSCHEN MITTWOCH (Tuesday and a Bit of Wednesday), in which you portrayed the daily routine of a Korean high school student. What prompted you to return, ten years later, to shoot another film in Korea?

The film begins quite differently, though — with your family history.

Starting off with the filmmaker’s family history, the film then significantly widens its scope. What is your “field of investigation” in this film project?

What does the division of Korea mean to you, and did the film change your attitude?

The first impulse came during a guided visit to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. There was really nothing to see – just some trees, a few buildings, and a bit of barbed wire. What mainly impressed me was how the (South Korean) tour guide, in her moderation, succeeded in projecting so much significance onto that bit of nothing, it left you feeling you had witnessed something special, even something especially dangerous. I returned to Paju several years later to visit a friend. As I talked to her, I realized that the area along the border isn’t perceived as dangerous, at all, by South Koreans. Some of them aren’t even aware where the border runs, or which mountain in the landscape is in the North, or in the South. I initially found it odd, of course, that these things had scarcely any significance to them or their daily lives.

My mother’s family is originally from North Korea. Just before the Korean War, they fled to the South. Later, my grandparents were buried in Paju, in a ceme-tery for refugees from North Korea.

I asked myself what traces the division has left in modern South Korea. There are many different answers, of course. Seeking to reflect these differences, I selected my protagonists from various age groups and professions. From the outset, for example, I wanted to include a tour guide, because I found it interesting that the division of Korea is her livelihood, her rice and kimchi, so to speak.

To put it provocatively, I don’t believe in the Korean division, at least not in its current form. It is a relic from the Cold War, which by the twenty-first century should have been overcome. The film led me to understand the extent to which the people of Korea have internalized the division and are living with it. And it showed me that any discussion of any kind of reunification must focus not only on how to overcome the external (political) division of two nations – the more significant question may be how to reconcile the inner division of their inhabitants’ mind sets.

Credits Screenplay/direction/editing

Susanne Mi-Son Quester

Camera Mieko Azuma

Sound Jihoon Seo, Kim Si Hyun

Editing consultant Jihyeon Park

Produced by mandarinenfilm Susanne Mi-Son Quester, Florian Geierstanger

Producer Korea Minki Hong, Dayoung Kim

This project took part in the Berlinale Talents Doc Station 2015 and was developed at the EDN workshop Lisbon Docs 2015. It was supported by the Deutsches Akademischen Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD) and produced with funding from the Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film (Young German Film Committee) and the FFF Bayern.

mandarinenfilmAstallerstr. 6, 80339 Munich, GermanyTel: +49-160-1548401susanne.quester@gmail.commandarinenfilm.de