Film Screening:

Miracle on Jongno Street

(Lee Hyuk-Sang, 2010, 109 min, South Korea, in Korean w/ English subtitles, Color, Digital)

-- Q&A to follow w/ filmmaker Lee Hyuk-Sang!

Jongno(“Bell Street”) in Seoul, has been a cultural ghetto for gay men since at least the 1980’s. Currently home to over 100 business establishments and human rights activist organizations mainly for gay men, it is an indispensable community and a safe haven where sexual minorities, through unfettered communication and encounters, have created their own culture and raised their pride. The first feature length gay documentary film in Korea in one of the most conservative countries for LGBT people in Asia, Miracle on Jongno Street is a story about 4 gay men who try to lead a 'normal but unique life'. Despite their weary lives, The alleys of Nagwon-dong('Eden District') of Jongno in Seoul is a place where they make friends and find love, and in a way it could be referred to as their private 'Garden of Eden'. The movie is a real-life documentary about 5 men including the director himself, who meet and become friends in Eden. In the middle of making a queer film Jun-moon, an independent film director, loses his self-confidence due to social scrutiny regarding his sexual orientation and trauma from his military duty. Byung-gwon, a gay rights activist, has been participating in movements to establish equal rights for homosexual laborers and workplaces that are free of discrimination against sexual minorities. Young-soo, a chef who moved from the countryside 10 years ago, lived a lonely life but he finds happiness after joining a gay choir called G-Voice. Yol, who works for a major company, dreams of the day he, and his partner, can have a legal wedding with overcoming the prejudice against people living with HIV/AIDS.

Disclosing his gay identity along with these four gay friends, the director seeks to tell the world the true meaning of coming out. These stories are no different from the lives of the 'heterosexual majority' and the relatively normal portrayal of these men is original and a significant achievement in the positive representation of homosexuals for the first time in Korea.

-- PIFF Mecenat Award for Best Korean Documentary in Pusan International Film Festival (2010)!

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsors: Academy of Korean Studies, Duke Korea Forum, Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI).