프로그램 노트

Program Note

At 27, Cheol-jun finds himself caught between two intersecting marginalized identities: as a North Korean defector and as a gay man. After arriving in South Korea, he is placed within a community of fellow defectors and undergoes a  training aimed at helping him assimilate into the South Korean system. Though now living in the South, he is still trapped within the identity of a defector—forced to continually prove his ability to assimilate. His sexual identity offers no such help. If discovered, it might even lead to rejection from the only community that has accepted him.

He still needs gay friends—and, more than that, a gay community. What he longs for isn't the freedom to love men, which was denied in North Korea, but warm relationships where he can share a meal and speak openly from the heart. Cheol-jun longs to be among people like himself. What he seeks is not a community assigned by circumstance—defined by birth or origin—but one he can choose for himself. It is, quite simply, the gay community he desires.

When he musters the courage to attend a casual gay meetup, he meets Yeong-jun, a peer who warmly welcomes him and helps him navigate this new world. Yeong-jun comes to represent the gay community itself. Cheol-jun’s affection for him begins to overlap with his longing for that community. Confronted with the inevitable impermanence of a community that once seemed constant, Cheol-jun is pushed into growth. (KIM Kyung-tae)