WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

PROPOSITIONS – Twelve Selected Films

What is a woman, whos passed 30, waiting for in South Korea? Society pressures her into finding a soulmate, getting married, starting a family. Yet, by looking around her, filmmaker Hyun Kyung Kim saw other women waiting. Women over seventy, who were once young brides but were separated, more than fifty years ago, from their beloved husbands during the Korean War. They grew old and lonely, and found ways to cope with their situation. Kim spends quality time and conducts intimate, sensitive interviews with two of these women. One, Soonae Lee, lives in semi-poverty in the countryside and hides her wounds and a heart of gold under a gruff appearance. The other, Gwi-ub Jung, became a celebrity in the Korean media when her (brief) reunion with her husband was shown on television in 2002. Both husbands are alive and remarried in the North. These women have spent their entire lives waiting but isnt it Korea herself that is waiting for reunification, for the healing of the deep wounds created by the war? What Are We Waiting For? is a major contribution to the hidden history of the Korean War and its impact on ordinary people.