Embodied Cinema of Gina Kim

Renowned diasporic filmmaker Gina Kim delves into the harrowing yet overlooked history of US military comfort women in her powerful VR trilogy. Established near US military bases in South Korea after the Korean War, 96 camp towns featured brothels with women officially labeled as US military comfort women by the authorities.

The COMFORTLESS trilogy spans various decades and cities, unveiling the atrocities faced by these women and highlighting the lasting impact of systematic exploitation and gender violence. All three films were shot on location, infusing the narratives with palpable authenticity and creating invaluable archives of the sites.

This talk follows a Duke screening of "Faces of Seoul," an intimate documentary essay on the enigmatic city of Seoul and an early inspiration for the trilogy.


About the speaker:

Gina Kim's award-winning films reimagine cinematic storytelling across genres and platforms, offering a unique transnational perspective centered on female protagonists. Her five feature films and media art pieces have been showcased at over 200 prestigious international film festivals and venues, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Sundance, as well as MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and the Smithsonian.

"Never Forever" (2007), starring Jung-woo Ha and Vera Farmiga, was the first co-production between the United States and South Korea. "Final Recipe" (2014), starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh and Henry Lau, was widely released in China in over 3,000 theaters.

Kim's virtual reality work, the COMFORTLESS Trilogy, won the Best VR Award at the Venice and Geneva International Film Festivals and received numerous other international awards, nominations, and media coverage.

Kim was the first Asian woman in her department at Harvard and is now a professor at UCLA in the Department of Film, TV, and Digital Media.



This event is organized by APSI with co-sponsorship from the programs in Asian American & Diaspora Studies (AADS) and Cinematic Arts (Screen/Society) as well as the departments of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) and Art, Art History, & Visual Studies.