The 32nd Portland International Film Festival starts up today and one of the films from the U.S. is Treeless Mountain by So Young Kim which I heard was pretty good, so if you're down there for the fest check it out:
Here's also director So Yong Kim talking about her film:TREELESS MOUNTAIN
United States
Director: So Yong Kim
Thu Feb 12 9:15PM B2
Sat Feb 14 8:30PM B2
TREELESS MOUNTAIN Inspired by childhood events, Treeless Mountain has been described by So Yong Kim as a letter to her mother. The film tells a poignant, emotional story of growing up in the Korean countryside and the joys, worries, and hurts of early childhood. Sent by their impoverished mother in Seoul to live with an aunt in a small village, six-year-old Jin and her younger sister Bin find themselves at the mercy of their selfish, alcoholic “Big Aunt.” Reduced to selling fried grasshoppers to earn money, their misery is compounded when their mother writes to say she cannot take them back and they must move to their grandparents’ farm. But there, the two neglected innocents finally find a measure of security and love. “Treeless Mountain is made of the same substance as cinema-vérité, but it is woven with a dreamlike quality, making it seem like a horrific fairy tale that is at the same time painfully realistic.”—Toronto Film Festival. (89 mins.)
