ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Asian Network of Documentary(AND) Fund

2014

2014 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Strangers on the Field
Category Distribution Fund
Project Strangers on the Field
Director KIM Myeong-joon
Country Korea
Director's Profile Kim graduated from Department of Theater and Cinema, Hanyang University. He started his film career as a staff for cinematography and worked as D.P. for several films including Flower Island(2001), Boy Meets Boy(2008) and Two Weddings And a Funeral(2012). Since his first directing documentary Our School(2006) received Woonpa Award at BIFF, he has been making films following the lives of Korean Japanese based on his relationship with Korean schools in Japan.
Synopsis
In April 2013, unfamiliar faces appear at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the opening matches between Doosan and SK. The nervous middle-aged men throwing and batting the first ball are, in fact, Korean-Japanese former team members that played on that same spot in the 1982 finals of the Bong-hwang-dae-ki games.
Director Kim Myeong-joon uses the four mounds of a baseball field to reproduce the happy reunion between the middle-aged men, who are no longer baseball players, just those who lead very normal lives. Their reunion begins at the batter’s box and ends at home plate, and does more than simply remember the individuals who played in the 1982 games. It shows the history of Korean baseball marked by the footprints left by the Korean-Japanese players who visited their homeland between 1956 and 1997. (KONG Youngmin, BIFF Program Note)
Director's Note
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Festivals
2014 Busan International Film Festvial - Wide Angle_Documentary Competition
2014 Seoul Independant Film Festival
Still Cut
LIST