Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People
Co-director, producer, co-writer Y. David Chung in person
In 1937, Josef Stalin began a campaign of massive ethnic cleansing, forcibly deporting everyone of Korean origin in Far East Russia to the steppe country of Central Asia, 3700 miles away. Y. David Chung and Matt Dibble’s documentary charts the extraordinary untold history of the Koryo Saram (the Soviet Korean phrase for Korean person), dubbed “The Unreliable People” by Stalin. Through never-before-seen historical footage and emotional personal accounts from the original Koryo Saram, a lost history is pieced together, one that survived Stalin’s mandate to eradicate the Korean language and tradition. In Kazakh, Korean or Russian, the film asks questions that all immigrants can relate to: how to hold onto one’s traditions, and how to save one’s culture from being overwhelmed.
This screening is presented in collaboration with the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition (SEAMAAC) and the Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation.
Producers’ Forums are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Independence Foundation.
Location(s)
Y. David Chung (co-director, producer, co-writer) is a filmmaker and visual artist known for his multi-media installations, paintings, drawings, prints, and public artworks who has exhibited widely throughout the country and internationally at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Project Rowhouse, the Gwangju Biennale and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Chung began his career collaborating as a graphic artist on documentary films. Selected credits include Surveillance, No Place to Hide (HBO), American Journey (PBS), and Gardens of Paradise (PBS) and Peace on Borrowed Time (ABC). He received a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship in 1995. Chung is Associate Professor with the School of Art and Design and the Director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan.