Welcome to BASE21

Photo by Kim Yong-woon

by Christian / Base21 Media Activists
dvs-b@t-online.de

Last Friday the 7th Human Right Film Festival started with a great opening ceremony. The main issues of years film festival: international solidarity and the case of anti-war.

Especially the situation of migrants here in South Korea but also in other countries stays in the foreground of this years festival.

So it was no wonder that Kabir Uddin was leading through the program of the opening ceremony.

The opening film, Seontaek - The Road Taken, dedicated to Kim Sun-myun showed 45 years he has to spend in South Korean jails as political prisoner. Torture, humiliations and sufferings determined his every day life over decades. A great movie about the darkness of the modern history of South Korea. Hon Ki-seong, the director started this project ten years before, but only now he was allowed to finish and screen the film. So many people where interested in the movie that the theater was completely overcrowded. During the show a dozen of former long term political prisoners where present. Personally they thanked him for his courageous and impressive film.

Other highlights: the Korean production We are migrant workers from Na Du-kyeong and Manie and Afghan Massacre by Jamie Doran. The film tells the story of the mass killing of Afghan and foreign POW during the days of the US-led aggression against the Central Asian country. The movie documented the involvement of US and British special forces in the massacres.

The Weather Underground by Sam Green and Bill Siegel document the history of the same named armed resistance group in the USA, founded 1969 as a splitting product of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Of course there are many movies about the social problems in the South Korean society, like Tae un-shiks To the bitter end Ver 1.0 Joo Bong-hui about the struggle for labor rights and Park Jong-pils Lets Take Bus, the struggle of disabled people in South Korea for the right of mobility.

The program will run until Wednesday. For more information about the program see also [http://www.sarangbang.or.kr/kr/main/kr-frame.html]. Theyve also an English site, but the program is unfortunately only in Korean.