The following director group interview took place on 8 November 2019 as part of the 2019 London Korean Film Festival:

Interview:

Hangul Celluloid: If I could start by asking what your motivations were in using a story about an elderly couple, their family and their carer as the subject matter for you debut feature A Bedsore - social, personal or simply cinematic?

Shim Hye-jung: My motivations were both personal and based on social issues. People of my age often speak about caring for the elderly and the family conflicts that often come from that. As I was writing the script for A Bedsore there was a lot of talk about social immobility taking place in Korea - it's quite similar to here if you think of the metaphor of the gold spoon etc. In Korea it's becoming increasingly difficult, some might say impossible, to move between classes. It has become much more stigmatised and it is just like a bedsore - it's just kind of stuck there - and that was really where the story came from.


Asian Movie Pulse: Could you tell us more about the character of the carer in A Bedsore? She is quite controversial in a way being an illegal immigrant and being from a different area, not exactly Korea, so what were your thoughts when you were first including her in the story?

Shim Hye-jung: Actually, my mum was ill for a while and had to be cared for by helpers and a lot of that type of work is done by Korean-Chinese groups. It used to be about 80% Korean and 20% Korean-Chinese people doing these jobs but now it's virtually reversed and it's kind of become a phenomenon. It's such a low paid job but there is such a need to understand Korean culture to do the work effectively that Korean-Chinese have become the vast majority of those doing domestic and caring help.


FilmDoo: I think A Bedsore presents a very interesting perspective on modern families, like the way a character has to move away from her family to support them, another character having moved to the US and the elderly couple's children overall appearing to be in their own world, caught up in their own lives and self-interests. I wondered, do you feel your films gives quite a despondent view of the modern family unit; is the family unit falling apart?  

Shim Hye-jung: Korea has long presented a strong picture of traditional society and I feel that we are approaching the end of that now. I think often  with old traditions when it reaches its end it in a way reveals its essence and I think that's what is happening now. I very interested in how the old traditionalism remains and how it carries certain meanings about society so that's why and how I presented the issues.


Screen Queens: There is an American film about an undocumented Filipino woman working as a carer for a Russian woman in trans-America. Why do you feel the role of care-givers is appealing to film-makers around the world at this time?

Shim Hye-jung: I think there are a lot of migrant workers in Koreas but there aren't enough stories about them. Care-giving is such an intimate job - you are right inside a person's home - and that means they are really deep within society as well. But I don't think it is discussed enough and though there have been some stories about migrant workers in Jeju, for example, it's not portrayed a 'everyday'. I feel this is a major social issue that shouldn't be considered as sensational but far more commonplace and I'm interested in the psychology of the Korean people and how they perceive these migrant workers.


Hangul Celluloid: Having personally dealt with elderly bedridden relatives, bedsores and indeed discussions of home or institutionalised care, A Bedsore hit me powerfully. While the film is specifically Korean, from my point of view its issues are global. As the film began being screened internationally were you nervous about ho foreign audiences would relate to the narrative or were you confident that the issues covered are universally relatable and relevant?

Shim Hye-jung: From my understanding, Europe has much better care and support for the elderly than Korea and what I was curious about when I was making A Bedsore was whether foreign audiences would perhaps be curious as to why that care in Korea is the whole responsibility of families. I thought that aspect might be very specific to Korea but the idea of family conflicts, competition between siblings etc. I was fairly confident would be universally accepted.


Asian Movie Pulse: I think it is very interesting that you see the film as very Korean because to me it felt very feminist. I first saw the film in Seoul and I instantly noticed that the female characters are so strong and the pressures on women in terms of the responsibility of elderly care. What are your thoughts on that?

Shim Hye-jung: All my short stories have women as the main protagonists. In A Bedsore the elderly man, Chang-sik, is the main protagonist but I think I'm ultimately more interested in minor characters whether they are women, elderly or migrant workers. I also like the idea of strong survivors who work very hard and the main female character in my film has a real presence and energy that I really wanted to portray.


FilmDoo: The carer in A Bedsore feels she needs to get married to stay in the country and the father of the family even offers to divorce his wife to keep her there. I wanted to get your perspective on that. Do you perhaps feel that marriage is becoming outdated as an institution in Korea?

Shim Hye-jung: That's a bit of a complex situation. If you remember just before the two decide to get married they have a discussion the different approaches to marriage - the fact that both are married already, etc. and with that I wanted to show that the understanding of marriage is becoming much more flexible.


Eastern Kicks: This is your debut feature film. Were there any particular challenges you faced while making it?

Shim Hye-jung: Yes, when I made short films I could see the whole outline very easily, but with a longer feature film there are different ways to think about the structure, there are many more scenes and as you put the together you can't easily see how they will ultimately work. So, finding the structure for the whole film was certainly challenging. Also, I couldn't find one sole investor to finance the entire film so I had to use a number of different sources so I had to spend a lot of time doing that rather than actually getting on with making the film.


Asian Movie Pulse: Where did the money come from?

Shim Hye-jung: The funding ultimately came from the Seoul Media Film Committee and the Jeonju Project Market.


Screen Queens: Because the subject matter of A Bedsore is so personal, as has been discussed, I wondered how the actors approached their roles, as the film is so psychological.

Shim Hye-jung: All the actors in my films come from theatre. I don't know how other directors work but I talked to the cast members a lot, we read the script together and we spent a lot of time preparing for shooting. I had a limited budget so I couldn't do much during the shoot which made the need for a lot of prep work beforehand even greater. British film-maker Mike Leigh is someone I really admire and I know he works a lot with theatre actors. I find the way he creates characters quite amazing so I studied how he works with actors a lot and having a growing understanding of his process gave me confidence in the cast giving what was needed by my film.  


Hangul Celluloid: I am obsessed with independent Korean cinema and the difficulties it has when put up against big budget commercial blockbusters, many of the latter screening in a huge number of cinemas shutting out those independents in the process. You have already spoken of the financial difficulties you faced when making A Bedsore but you are also not only an independent film-maker but also both a female director working in a still predominately male dominated industry and indeed a debut feature director. Would you say the main problems you faced came from your position as a debut feature film-maker, as a female director or indeed because you film was an independent production?

Shim Hye-jung: There is another factor: I am not young [Shim Hye-jung laughs]. Korea is a society that takes age very seriously - age is a very important factor in all walks of life. If you are successful then the fact that you are old is something to be celebrated but if you're not then being old comes across as somewhat of a problem. I'm only a first-time director so I can't really comment on the entire film industry but based on my own experiences and conversations I've had with my cohorts, Korea society doesn't respect diversity as much as it should. Capital is just taken for granted and what is seen as competent is rarely questioned. So people just say to just make a well made film or just make well attended films and all of the other nuances are not necessarily appreciated. This sort of score-based culture is something that everyone seems to desire. I've heard the screen quota might be brought back in Korea so that might help boost independent cinema but I still think many of these aspects really need to improve to give independent cinema a real fighting chance.


Asian Movie Pulse: Many directors that I've spoken to in Korea have talked about their desire to have theatrical movies and successful theatrical releases. Does that appeal to you too and what are your goals as a director, especially having come to making features at a later age?

Shim Hye-jung: I'm not so sure that having my film theatrically released is really the most important thing but I do think a lot about how to meet audiences with my films. Now that I have made a feature I can start to think about having it screened theatrically but when I've made short films that hasn't been a possibility. So, where to show it and how to meet who is something I'm now thinking more about.   


FilmDoo: What is next for you? What will your next project be?

Shim Hye-jung: Yes, I'm already working on my next project. We just bought the rights to adapt a novella called Flower Out of Mould so I'm going to be adapting that into a new feature film.


Eastern Kicks: You've talked about using theatre actors in A Bedsore. Was that also the case in your short films?

Shim Hye-jung: Yes, I always use theatre actors. I do like going to the theatre and I really don't like the auditioning process - I don't trust myself in that process - so I cast actors from seeing them in theatre or TV. I guess |I monitor some actors with my films in mind.


Hangul Celluloid: We've got the story of A Bedsore and within that, of course, the bedsore in question stands as an allegory of societal ills in Korea. Which came first? Did you have the family drama and later added the idea and theme of the bedsore or did you first think of societal ills as a kind of a bedsore and try to shape the story around that?   

Shim Hye-jung: It was pretty much simultaneous. I wanted to tell a story about the elderly and familial relationships and difficulties but at the same time I thought the idea of a bedsore could be amazing as a symbolic sort of metaphor, I suppose, so both appeared at kind of the same time allowing me to focus on both from the outset.

 

On behalf of everyone involved, I'd sincerely like to thank the London Korean Film Festival and the Korean Cultural Centre UK for allowing us all to interview director Shim Hye-jung at such length.