Films by Sung-Hyung Cho

Germany 2016, 82 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

While Bang Gye Yong starts singing the song "Beloved Leader and his endless love of his people" at a socialist concert hall in Pjöngjang, 200 kilometres south, in a dingy basement in Seoul, a loud "Grrrrrhhh" is resounding simultaneously. Hu Sun-Gyung is screaming into the microphone: "Dad, it's your fault that I have become slut!"One with the collar of her white blouse buttoned up, a badge with the face of the North Korean Leader Kim Jong II pinned onto it, her hair cut short and neatly, wearing a dark-coloured costume; the other wearing a red checkered shirt worn over a print T-shirt, tight, stripy trousers, with bleach blond hair. One with a nice soprano voice, accompanied by a classical orchestra, the other a wailing guitar and screaming punk band.In a double portrayal the film tells the story of two young students in divided Korea, whose differing life circumstances are hard to believe. Gye Yong lives in an oppressive, totalitarian society, seemingly in an outdated regime, Sun-Gyung lives in an intimidating, high-powered, male dominated society. But both women are trying to find happiness and to realise their own personal dreams, despite living in one of the collective environments, shaped by Korean culture, with very little room for individual development.

Germany 2016, 90 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

Who really knows anything about North Korea beyond its borders? Whatever we see or hear about this isolated land is always the same: Military parades with tanks and rockets, male and female soldiers marching like robots, threats of war, famine, obedient children and not least of all, three generations of dictators and their hysterically adoring followers. Award-winning filmmaker Sung-Hyung Cho pursues this question from right within its midst – in North Korea.MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE NORTH portrays the people behind the persistent clichés and stereotypes of a misunderstood nation and provides an in-depth look behind the garish façade of propaganda in a living environment that is usually inaccessible to us. The people encountered by the director on her journey through the country – engineers, soldiers, farmers, painters, seamstresses – are not chance acquaintances, they were chosen by the regime. Nevertheless, Cho approaches her protagonists with sincere interest, respect and most of all, devoid of any judgement. Thus appears a cheerful folk who, despite their often peculiar-seeming love towards their “leader”, have by no means given up on their dreams or the hope of a reunification of both Koreas. Filmmaker Sung-Hyung Cho grew up in South Korea with the notion that her neighbouring country in the north was populated by monsters: At school she was taught that North Koreans had red skin and two horns on their heads. As the first South Korean filmmaker to ever receive official permission to film in the country beyond its borders, Cho acquired the chance to bid farewell to her prejudices and revise her preconceived image of people in North Korea.

2013, 93 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

In 1952, in the midst of the Korean War, North Korea sent selected students to socialist sister countries with the intention that they should be trained there and then at some point return with their newly accrued knowledge in order to rebuild their ruined homeland. The GDR received a large number of these Korean students.In addition to the German language, these polite young men soon mastered all the local dance moves. It was during this time that they were to have such fateful encounters with young German women: their personal love and life stories began against the backdrop of major world history.At the beginning of the 1960s the young North Koreans had to return home, some leaving their newly formed families forever.This film tells the story of some of these people who have not seen one another for decades, and who now long to be reunited, or at least learn more about the life of their young love or unknown parent in the Far East.

Germany 2009, 95 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

Three women return to South Korea after spending over thirty years in Germany. Together with their German husbands they live in the "German Village", a quirky tourist attraction replete with red tiled roofs, Bockwurst and Pumpernickel. Korean director – Hyung Cho plumbs the depths of this balancing act between two cultures with humour and sensitivity.

Germany 2006, 90 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

Just as the church choir pipe up the chorus of "We praise you, dear Lord", a few hundred metres away on the Black Metal Stage, a loud rumble can be heard. The lead singer of "Kreator" is bellowing "Enemy of God" into his microphone, roaring out his visions of death and the immortality of evil, brimming over with hatred. At first glance, the cultural chasm that exists between the inhabitants of Wacken and the heavy metal fans who have travelled from all over the world to be here could not be greater. On one hand, lace shirts, golden crucifixes and dark single-breasted suits; on the other, black Lederhosen, studded collars, tatoos of Satan and shoulder-length hair. Once a year, on the first weekend in August, the tiny village of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein bids farewell to the peace and tranquility that normally characterize this community of two thousand souls. It is then that the Wacken Open Air Festival takes place. Things all started 17 years ago in a barn full of a couple of hundred "headbangers", with their numbers growing to a few thousand in the years which followed. The Wacken Open Air Festival has now become something of a place of pilgrimage for 40,000 heavy metallers from all over the world. "Full Metal Village" examines the curiously amiable clash between these two cultures. Through its focus on the temporary music event, however, the film documents a picture of a rural community whose sense of identity and cohesion would now be practically unimaginable without the heavy metal festival. The canny Farmer Trede for instance, who "cultivates" a number of sidelines alongside the business of traditional farming: a biogas site, share dealing and the leasing of land for the festival are all helping to secure his "additional income". He is also in charge of coordinating over 150 helpers for the Festival. Farmer Plaehn, in contrast, seems uninterested in all of this. When he sits in his stall, smoking a cigarette as he waits for the milk to warm up to 40 degrees, time seems to stand still for a while. "This is the fun part of farming", he declares, sighing. Norbert, co-founder of the festival some 17 years ago and unemployed for the last couple of years, now only attends the festival as a visitor - he regrets bowing out of the organisational side of things. For 16 year-old Kathrin the festival offers the opportunity to break free of the confines of village life once a year and to party with people from all over the world. She dreams of being able to travel, of seeing something else: "A holiday in Bavaria, or something like that." Her Grandmother Irma, in contrast, is unimpressed by the Wacken Open Air Festival and the terrifying music, prayers to Satan and bloody rituals of which she has heard tell. She herself has never been to the festival... The village appears to have been in the throes of a series of dramatic shifts over the past 17 years: from the revolution in the now largely unprofitable milk business, right through to a new definition of the centuries old agricultural self- image. Perhaps it was precisely this shift in mentality which Farmer Trede had in mind when he said: "You're better off milking people than cows."