[Special Joint Event with APEA] Friday, 3/1 at 3pm: So Hye Kim

Zhang Lu (1962-), is one of the most emblematic diaspora filmmakers in South Korea today. In the five feature films which he released between his debut in 2004 and 2008, Zhang portrays ethnic Koreans across China, Korea and Mongolia who are pushed by inexorable forces to the peripheries of, and boundaries between nation-states. In 2009 Zhang returned to his hometown near the North Korean-Chinese border to film Dooman River, a work that depicts encounters between two distinct diasporic groups: ethnic Koreans in China, who form a cultural and linguistic enclave with certain autonomy from mainstream Chinese society, and North Korean refugees, who cross the border to survive the rampant hunger of their isolated homeland. This talk argues that Dooman River uncovers new forms of transnational practices of cinematic imagination and spectatorial experience which reach beyond the divided Korea. To be specific, this talk analyzes the ways in which the film’s text embodies border-crossing both in its narrative and cinematic form and invites spectators to experience the border-crossing by viewing the film.