'Troublers' denounces the queer persecution in South Korea
Lee Young work will close the activity cycle 'Women*: together and diverse' by Barcelona LGTBI Centre.
Troublers was premiered at the Filmoteca de Catalunya in 2017 on the occasion of the 25th International Women's Film Festival of Barcelona. Now, the cooperative and audiovisual production company Drac Màgic has recovered this title to finish off the cycle of online activities Women*: together and diverse that the Barcelona LGTBI Centre has carried out between April and July around the exhibition Lesbophobia: towards and reversing patriarchal violence. South Korean lesbian activist and feminist Lee Young is a reputable movie director, even amongst the specialized movie critics in her country, where hate speech pushes queer life to the limits of a bearable life. Her work OUT: Smashing Homophobia Project (2017) won the Seoul Human Rights Film Festival and the prize for documentaries at the Seoul International Women's Film Festival, while Troublers (2015) won the special award at the South Korea International Documentary Film Festival. As a result of her commitment, in 2001, she founded the documentary film collective Feminist Visual Activism WOM (WOM Docs). Since then, her movies have made a name for themselves at numerous festivals in San Francisco, London, Crételi, Yamagata, and beyond – all thanks to the originality and the new perspectives with which Young presents themes and stories.
In Troublers, Young takes a deep dive into a documentary style that consists of composing social events through the daily lives of anonymous, practically invisible but deeply stigmatized characters. The original title speaks for itself. This time, the director has started a journey to address the situation of the LGTBIQ community. The result is a road movie that brings the viewers closer to several testimonies condemned into living a precarious existence. It is a raw and courageous portrait that reflects the phobic culture of South Korean society and the constant witch-hunt to which non-normative gender identities are being subjected.
The documentary will be available online for 48 hours through the Cines Girona digital platform.