SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Sunday, March 12, 2006

Pacific Rim: The Gentle but Searing Visions of Soon-Mi Yoo

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts





Presented in Association with Women of Color Film Festival and the Center for Asian American Media

Korean artist Soon-Mi Yoo kicks off our new series exploring personal and experimental filmmaking emerging from or engaging with the Pacific Rim. Combining aesthetic grace with emotional intensity, the personal with the political, her experimental videos explore Korea’s lesser known peripheral histories. Thus ssitkim: talking to the dead is a moving essay on grieving and the little known role of 320,000 Korean soldiers who fought in Vietnam for the United States and carried out mass civilian killings. ISAHN uses the stereoscopes placed on North Korean border-where exiled North Koreans can look back at state approved photographs of ‘home’ to dwell on the difficulties of displacement and the pain of being separated across borders. Also screening: faith, the new supplements, and a work-in-progress. (Irina Leimbacher)