Sunflower(1970) is the late representative work of Italian neorealist master Vittorio De Sica, who is also known for his masterpiece Bicycle Thieves which should not be missed. It depicts the tragic fate of a young couple separated by war, and the scene of the sunflower field that spreads out on the screen has become a huge hit worldwide, leaving a strong impression with Henry Mancini's music. The cast included Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, and Ludmila Savelyeva. The film was highlighted as Mastroianni, who used to have a playboy image, played the role of a soldier who became a victim of tragedy, and Savelyeva, a beautiful Soviet actress who captivated the audience in the film “War and Peace,” played an ordinary Ukrainian woman from a rural area. In the late 1960s, when the film was produced, it was still a time when East and West were still sharply opposed, so it was difficult for Western filming teams to shoot and produce in the Soviet Union and release it. The story is a typical melodrama, but it can be seen that it contains the desperate desire for the thaw of the East and West camps as well as world peace. More than 70 years after the end of World War II and nearly half a century after its release, the film is drawing attention again in the face of war in Ukraine. This is because it lets us know the reality that the war is not over and some tragedy is underway. It is a work that the younger generation must see.

Regarding this work, I would like to introduce The Truce (1996, co-produced by Italy, Germany, France, and Switzerland) made by the Italian director Francesco Rosi. The original work is The Armistice by Auschwitz's surviving author Primo Levi. Levi, an Italian Jew, was liberated naked as if he were thrown into the wilderness when the Auschwitz camp was liberated by the Soviet army. Since then, the film depicted his journey of hardship from traveling in western Russia, including Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, to his hometown in Italy after eight months, and it can be called the “Epic poem of the 20th Century.” However, it is not just a song of joy that has been freed from hardship and revived. Full of bitter warnings, it is a story of deep insight regarding human existence. In other words, it is the first chapter of the epic poem from the “Poison War” starting from World War II and continuing on to the present, “a war that leads to a stream that does not end.” In addition, the difference between the original can be problematic, however, it is a work worth looking at carefully with this as a critical point. (SUH Kyung-sik)

SUH Kyung-sik

Suh Kyung-sik was born in 1951 in Kyoto, Japan as the second generation of Zainichi Koreans living in Japan. He is a writer and honorary professor after retiring from Tokyo University of Economics. His major books include My Pilgrimage to Western Art, Boy's Tears, Finding Primo Levi, a Witness of the Ages, The Diaspora Journey, Dancing at the Boundary (co-authored by Tawada Yoko), etc.

One of the common stereotypes about plants is that, unlike animals, they are fixed in a certain place. However, plants actively interact with animals (insects or birds) or elements of nature (wind or water), so that they can respond to the climate change caused by human industrial activities, and expand their habitats. Plants move through diaspores, the term referring to “things that are separated from vegetative parts, such as fruits, seeds, and spores, and become the basis for the next-generation plants.” In other words, the diaspora life, which leaves a place in search of another place for survival, is not limited to humans. Needless to say, plants have shared symbiotic migrations with humans throughout human history dotted with a series of civilizations and violence, such as agricultural development, colonial periods, and the wars. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, oaks, hazel trees, linden trees, boxwood trees, maple trees, elm trees, and raspberry trees all gather to form a shady forest while listening to the song of Orpheus, which is a poetic testimony to the dynamic diaspora of plants. Starting from the ancient mythological imagination, the lecture will take a look at some examples of the plant diaspora from the perspectives of film, art, and literature. (YOUN Kyunghee)

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians had to leave their home. Some crossed the border in search of safety, while others had no choice but to remain in the nation, therefore becoming homeless. A year has passed, but we are still far from reaching the end of the war. As the forced displacement is prolonged, the life of Ukrainian citizens is getting more and more miserable.

This year's DIAFF Academy is going to discuss the issues of war and forced displacement. We will listen to the story of Kim Kah-ul, a protection associate at the UNHCR Representation in the Republic of Korea who has been deployed as an emergency dispatcher in the beginning of the war and has carried out missions in Romania neighboring to Ukraine. Hopefully, it will be a chance to see the impact the war has so far had upon the life of refugees. (LEE Saegil)

LEE Saegil (Communications Associate, UNHCR Korea)

As a communications associate for the UNHCR Representation in the Republic of Korea, Lee Saegil is taking charge of raising the public awareness of refugees. He is also a producer of UNHCR-sponsored films such as Belonging (Paul Wu, 2021), and is trying to introduce the public the life of refugees by conveying the true nature of them through the medium of film.

KIM Kah-ul (Protection Associate, UNHCR Korea)

Kim Kah-ul, a Protection Associate of the UNHCR Korea, is providing technical support and advocacy to strengthen the refugee protection system and has experience in responding to forced displacement due to armed conflicts. After working in Thailand at the time of the boat escape of Rohingya refugees, she was appointed as a fast-track to Greece at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. In early 2022, she was dispatched to the Ukraine-Romania border as a member of the UNHCR crisis response team.

Is it because that film started as an invention? The film has been sentenced to death countless times whenever a new screening format comes out, but it eventually coexists with the new one and survives by changing the way it looks. The crisis theory of films has sometimes been a driving force for recreating aesthetics and film culture that discover cinematic things along with technology. As of 2023, after the great pandemic of COVID-19 (actually since before that), films are leaving the theatre, being subordinated to the technology that has developed aesthetics, and wandering into Cliché without finding anything new. We would like to check the current location of the film that is floating around now, overcoming hasty pessimism or optimism. As part of a gesture of “overcoming chaos through the plane that cut through it. (Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari)” (LEE Seungmin)

LEE Seungmin (Critic)

LEE Seung-Min is a film critic, producer, and independent researcher who lives a diaspora life between Korea, Canada, and China. Her books include Korean Documentary Today, Asian Documentary Today, and The Spatiality in Korean Documentary.

KIM Byeong-gyu(Critic)

Film critic. He started his career with the film magazine Filo and by winning the film critic award at Cine 21 in 2018.

YOO Un-Seong(Critic)

Film critic. Co-publisher of the film magazine Okulo.

CHO Hye Young(Critic)

CHO Hye Young is a lecturer and a researcher interested in digital video media, documentaries, and queer films while working as a researcher at Project 38 and vice chairperson of the Korea Media Rating Board.