Documentary gives an “Upside Down” look at the Sewol sinking

Posted on : 2016-03-29 16:00 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Various voices affected by the 2014 sinking are brought together to cast a critical eye on society’s flaws
The filming of “Upside Down”
The filming of “Upside Down”

Kim Dong-bin was watching South Korean television online from Boston when the Sewol ferry disaster occurred on Apr. 16, 2014. The documentary filmmaker, now 24, saw live footage of a boat sinking. Soon word came that everyone had been rescued. He breathed a sigh of relief. But the next morning brought news that over 300 people were still trapped on board.

“It was a shock. I thought to myself, ‘I was watching people dying yesterday,’” he recalled. “And then the people on TV started talking about what kind of compensation the family members were going to get. After that, they mentioned Yoo Byung-eun [the owner of Cheonghaejin Marine, which owned the Sewol].”

“It felt like the common-sense world I knew was being shaken to the core. The focus in a tragedy like that should be the victims, and it felt like everyone was ignoring the victims’ perspective.”

It was the following Apr. 20 that Kim started posting on a South Korean online community page about wanting to cover the sinking and its aftermath. Twenty people who met online went on to establish “Project Together,” a movie production team. On May 1, they began raising funds on Kickstarter to make a documentary.

The Sewol tragedy changed a lot of people’s lives. Kim Dong-bin had graduated from Norwich University, a military college in Vermont, and participated in making the documentaries “Education Reform” and “Vermont Fallen.” He had always thought he would continue on as a military officer and documentary filmmaker in the US. But in July 2014, he founded himself in South Korea with Project Together making “Upside Down,” a record of the Sewol disaster.

“All of us on the team kept talking about how crazy we were. Apart from the writer, Lee Jae-yeon, and the music director, Kwak Yeong-geon, nobody had any experience making videos,” Kim said. “People who had cars provided them when we needed one for shooting, and students who had to work part-time jobs to survive took off work to help with the production.”

“A lot of people in South Korea today don’t even want to talk about the Sewol because of their fatigue, their lethargy,” he added. “We were able to sustain that ‘beginner’s mind‘ because we were each giving everything we could to make the movie.”

“Upside Down” ended up being made with talent donations from ordinary people; 35 million won (US$30,080) of its 40 million won (US$34,380) total budget came from social funding.

As its title suggests, “Upside Down” casts a critical eye on a society where the Sewol sinking left common sense overturned. The documentary features the voices of various people. Four of the interviewees are fathers of victims in the sinking: Park Yeong-woo, who lost his daughter Seong-bin; Je Sam-yeol, whose son Se-ho was killed; Kim Hyeon-dong, whose daughter Da-young died; and Han Bok-nam, whose daughter Go-un died. Also interviewed are 16 experts from the fields of oceanography, law, education, and mass communications, including attorney Kwon Yeong-guk, Pusan National University naval architecture and ocean engineering professor Paik Jeom-kee, and former New England Center for Investigative Reporting director Joe Bergantino. The makers traveled around South Korea through Aug. 2014 telling the story of the Sewol. The documentary ends with a news anchor reporting on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak last year.

“People aren’t supposed to cry at the movie. I felt that I shouldn‘t signpost the places where viewers were supposed to cry or get angry,” said Kim. Instead, “Upside Down” offers a calm, even clinical examination of issues revealed by the tragedy.

“I thought citizens should be able to hear experts from different areas speaking out,” he added.

The decision to interview only the fathers among relatives of the victims also contributes to the film’s calm tone.

“Fathers in South Korean society are expected to put a strong face forward, so their grief has not gotten a lot of respect,” Kim explained. “I wanted to hear the emotions of family heads with a strong sense of responsibility who’ve had to suppress them inside since losing their children because they aren’t able to show them outwardly.”

The documentary also trains its scalpel on the media’s sensationalist handling of the tragedy, while examining issues that did not receive much attention from public broadcasters at the time, including safety standards and the failure to carry out a timely rescue.

“Upside Down” opens on Apr. 14 at Seoul Indie Space and 14 other theaters nationwide.

By Nam Eun-joo, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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