Kwon Aram
78 mins
In the mid-1990s, the first openly lesbian bar in South Korea, LesBos, opened its doors in Sinchon, Seoul. This documentary follows one of the bar’s proprietors, Myong-woo, whose witty commentary prompts a broader reflection on Seoul’s lesbian scene, and the evolution of the city’s queer spaces over the past five decades. In her feature debut, Kwon Aram documents generational change as she makes connections between past and present: from the 1976 police raid on Chanel, a women-only café that existed in Myeong-dong in the 1970s, to the more recent threat posed by Covid-19 to community solidarity. This is a film about a shared sense of belonging, and shared environments of kinship. Offering a rare insight into Seoul’s often-hidden lesbian history, Home Ground reveals the vibrancy and endurance of South Korea’s queer culture.
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Kwon Aram is a filmmaker who documents the memories of minority groups. She co-directed To become 2 (2013), which chronicled the transition of a transgender person, and directed Queer Room (2018) and 463 Poem of the Lost (2018), the latter about the ‘comfort women’ brothels overseen by the Japanese occupiers in wartime Thailand.
This screening is followed by an online Q&A with the director Kwon Aram, moderated by Melanie Iredale, Director of Reclaim The Frame.
Presented in partnership with Reclaim The Frame.