In the summer of 1945, at the age of 10, I, who had always regarded the emperor as my god, simultaneously faced the defeat of Japan and the liberation of my ancestral homeland. With the division of North and South, I began to search for my sense of belonging, and dove deeply into the darkness of the colonial history, which had remained near-hidden since the end of the war. My journey to recover the voices of Korean atomic bomb survivors and Korean “comfort women” that have been kept quiet for more than 50 years also became a journey in search of my own identity. I have produced four documentaries in the past, but I had the vast amount of footage that was never made into films, so together with my daughter I made this film, to "reclaim" the lives of the colonial victims.
Park Soo-nam
This project began with the restoration of 100,000 feet of 16mm film shot by my mother. The film is inscribed with the voices of Koreans forced into labour by Japanese colonizers, Korean atomic bomb survivors living in Korea and Japan who had been suffering from the aftereffects, survivors of the Battle of Okinawa, and the victims of the suppression of the independence movement. As a third generation Zainichi Korean, just like my mother and grandparents, I had to face the conflict of an identity torn between my Japanese name and my Korean name. Since my childhood, I witnessed histories of discrimination through my mother's documentary films, and learned the true stories of Korean history, which eventually gave me strength to resist the racism that we face today. I want to bring the victims' voices back from these old films, and see how their human rights were restored in the post-war years. This is a journey, not only to fight against the racism that is still deep-rooted in Japan today, but also to resist the eschewed historical accounts that hide traces of the violence which prevailed during Japanese imperialism. My mother has almost lost her sight, and can now barely see, but through her eyes and memories I was able to see the true history behind these films. Together with my mother, I traced the voices of history to bring their life back to the present.
Park Maeui
