Watermelons and Humans is an edited short (less than 3 minute-long) ethnofiction video

produced in the summer of 2015. It was scripted, directed, and co-edited by a then 17-year- old Suika (pseudonym) from Mainland China. It was collaboratively produced with a group

of other young migrant students from Mainland China and Vietnam who were then learning Japanese language at Kaede (pseudonym), a community-based nonprofit Japanese as Second Language (JSL) school located in Tokai area of Japan. I as the submitter of the video was involved first-hand throughout the preproduction, production, and postproduction. The video effectively utilizes as Suika’s preference a stop-motion animation technique of making a continuous movement of flat paper cut-out characters and objects that were physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames with variety of shots. The video was co-edited with me using Apple Final Cut Pro X based on a montaged sequence assembling such animated images of paper characters and objects, variedly shot images of characters performed by the participants, music, and voiceover. The video was extrapolated from Suika’s storyboard that focused on the importance of breaking humans’ habit of judging others, such as foreigners, based only on their appearances and looking instead into their inner sides despite shortcomings. Suika linked this theme to the parallelism between the appearances and inner sides of humans and those (bodies and fruit flesh with seeds) of watermelons. **FILMS may be viewed on Youtube ("About the Conference" drop down menu) or in the Watch Parties: Thursday 8pm-9pm or Sunday 10am-12pm or 2pm-6:30pm!**

ABOUT THE TOUR:

Squid Game, Parasite, and now My Name. Chances are excellent that know about the first two of these, and by the time of the Reel to Real conference rolls around you will probably have heard of the latest hit as well. Korean cinema, on both the large and small screen, has been front and centre on the global stage for the last while.

It’s quite possible that you’ve run into other English-language films by Korean directors and production companies (Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Park Chan-wook’s Stoker immediately come to mind). Or perhaps you encountered Korean cinema via one of the many remakes: Spike Lee’s version of Old Boy or the American version of Kim Jee-woon’s absolutely awesome-sauce A Tale of Two Sisters (which gets a different title: The Uninvited).

On the other hand, you might not know any of the above and are just beginning your journey into the world of Korean cinema. If that’s the case — don’t worry!

Whether you’re a newbie to Korean cinema or not, you’re cordially invited to join your host, Michael Free, who will take you on an interactive tour of the last 60 years of Korean cinema. Going decade by decade, and letting attendees ask questions along the way — which very well might take us off course, but in a hopefully delightful and informative manner!) — Michael will show you what Korean cinema has to offer beyond these recent hits. From Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid (1960) to Park Kim Do-young’s rendering of Choi Nam-joo’s novel Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (2019), this quick romp through Korean cinema’s history will give those interested places to look for Korean films and suggestions for what to watch according to their tastes and interests.

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Michael has been teaching English in Korea for over 15 years now, with an extremely wide range of students (public and private, academic and casual, as well teacher training). The courses he has taught are, for the most part, the usual: conversation English, speaking, academic writing and so forth. In addition to those, he has developed content-based courses in film: general film appreciation, the horror film, as well as courses dedicated to the vampire and zombie genres. Living in Korea and teaching mainly Korean students, a natural part of the growth of these courses (and his own knowledge of Korean language and culture) was the not-quite-casual study of Korean films. Recently, this study has become more intensive with his most recent course assignment: teaching international students about Korean language and culture via film and TV dramas.