Najeun moksori (The Murmuring)
Byun Young-joo | 1995 | South Korea | 100’ | 16mm (digital transfer) | Korean spoken, English subtitles 

In Najeun moksori (The Murmuring), Byun Young-joo, a founding member of the Parituh collective, documents the lives of six elderly women who reside in a communal house in Seoul. All are survivors of forced sexual labour at the hands of the Japanese army during World War II, so-called comfort women; each week they gather with others outside the Japanese embassy to demand a formal apology and compensation for their suffering. Breaking decades of silence, here the women tell their stories, intertwining personal and national traumas. Najeun moksori is the first instalment in Byun’s celebrated trilogy on the subject, followed by Najeun moksori 2 (Habitual Sadness, 1997) and Sumgyeol – Najeun moksori 3 (My Own Breathing, 1999).

With an introduction by Erika Balsom.