Until the Stones Speak

Hyun Soonjik is the oldest living resident in Jeju Island. A natural diver with good skills, she became a high rank Haenyeo at an early age and has led an astonishing career of diving for eighty-seven years. Though she looks more comfortable when she is under water than when she is at home, she quit diving in October, 2020, and goes to sea every day, missing her old life as a diver. When she does, Chae Jiae who has been disciplined by Hyun, accompanies her and looks after her. Together they head for Deulmoolyeo, a place that only Hyun can find, to see the water flowers that bloom under water.

70 years ago, a massacre called ‘Red Hunt’ occurred in Jeju island. Over 6 years, countless lives were murdered in the Daranshi cave, Jungbang waterfall, and Ompang field. There was no line between life and death. There were only ideological and political strategies that surrounded Jeju. After 49 years, survivors can finally testify the memories that could not be forgotten.

A follow-up to 1996's documentary on the massacre at Cheju island, Red Hunt 2 exposes the real facts of the outrage upon personal rights and the brutal butchering occurred 50 years ago. Lives of nine survivors with their grieving testimony expose the horror of six yearlong massacres by Rhee Seung-man regime which still lingers today.

On the shores of Jeju Island, a fierce group of South Korean divers fight to save their vanishing culture from looming threats.

Following water's flow through the volcanic body of Jeju Island, the film traces resilience across geological, historical, and mythical time. A lone visitor enters a cave where submerged memories—of militarization and exploitation—surface through sound.

Focusing on Mrs. Kang Sang-hee’s life, she lost her husband in the Jeju Uprising (March 3rd, 1948). The film views the dark-side of Jeju Island, a huge grave, which is completely opposite of the other side of the island, the famous tourist attraction. It says that the tragedy has been going on about the recent Gang-jeong village situation.

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang, carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

In an abandoned resort on the South Korean island of Jeju, a group of people perform a symbolic funeral ritual to end a world built on hierarchies, division and destruction.

In 1948, a red wave rose. From Yeosu to Busan, the filmmaker traces lives and memories layered along the sea. The Yeosu-Suncheon Incident erupted when soldiers stationed in Yeosu refused orders to suppress the Jeju 4·3 uprising, and many civilians were killed during the Rhee Syngman government's crackdown. After the Korean War began, the government branded National Guidance Alliance members as communists and carried out massacres nationwide. Beyond the killing sites in both cities lies the sea, along which state violence flowed from Yeosu to Busan.

The film shows demonstrations against building the second airport in Jeju Island the performances of environmentalists very closely and in detail, by which it develops a desperate love story.

Immediately after liberation, an incident called 'Jeju Uprising' took place on Jeju Island, the Hawaii of Korea, under the control of the US military government. As a result, about one-tenth of the total population of the island at that time was sacrificed. The children who survived the massacre record the memories of that day in an animated film 70 years later.