JEONJU Project

Documentary ㅣ Work In Progress

Blanket Wearer

PARK Jeongmi

Korea 96min FHD Color Documentary

Production StatusPost-Production

Goal of ParticipationFilm Festival Screening, World Sales

Production budget50,000,000 KRW

Budget Required50,000,000 KRW

LOGLINE

A story of the transformation of the protagonist who faces a financial crisis after losing her job in London and embarks a ‘living without spending money for one year’ project.

SYNOPSIS

The protagonist sets out to find ways to solve the three necessities for survival—a place to sleep, food, and transportation - without spending money. She rides a bicycle that was given for free and helps at organic farms and self-sufficient communities in exchange for room and board. In London, waste is the key for survival. Illegal squatting that occupies abandoned buildings and boat sitting for a friend who owns a houseboat goes on a trip, and skip diving for discarded food.
When out of the UK, she hitchhikes to travel. Living in the wild with nature loving people, she reconnects with nature. Traveling in a large caravan with a group of twenty hippies, immersing herself in the flow in pursuit of true freedom and peace. By the time it was the one-year anniversary of the project, she was in Greece. She continues her journey toward the East searching for the truth. While she travels through Türkiye, Georgia, Iran, and India without money, she seeks answers to the purpose and meaning of life.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Can we live without money?
The deadly high rent and cost of living in London, UK. Every breath you take costs you money. The project begins with a furious question when a young person who suffers from a financial crisis and depression after she has been laid off from her job at the London office:
"Is there no life if no money?"
Amidst the fear of survival, loneliness wanting to be loved and the emptiness of life, the protagonist struggles to solve everything with money, only to find herself thoroughly trapped in the cycle of labor and consumption. She realizes that her life, time, and existence are all being used solely to make money. In order to find a way to live without having to earn money, the protagonist decides to live for the sake of being alive. She is not going to spend any money.
What does a man live for? Who am I? How should I live? Follow the protagonist's questions about survival, love, and self-realization, and explore the true world in the world without money.

INTERVIEW

What inspired you to start this project?

In 2013, I went to London on UK working holiday visa. I was lucky to get a job, but I had a difficult time with my boss. I was eventually fired a few months later. I didn’t have the energy to find a job again. I used to check my bank balance every day and think ‘If this money runs out, my life is over,’ because I believed that my life and survival depended on it. One day, after days of sighs and tears of frustration, I suddenly had a hair-raising illusion. I saw my breath turns into time and money and disappear. Then an angry barrage of questions followed.
"Is breath money? I want to live, I just want to breathe. If I don’t have money, I can’t even do that? Is it natural that my life and my existence are used only to make money?" These angry questions made me jump out of bed when I was just lying there in depression.
No, life doesn’t end when you don’t have money. Being alive itself is a reason to live. I’m not going to waste my life doing things I don’t want to do for money anymore. So what should I do now? How do I live without making money? A very simple answer came to my mind. "Don’t spend money!"
That’s how I started, living without spending money for a year.

Is there any scene or emotion you want the audience to remember after watching this movie?

The project begins with the question of survival: ‘How do I make a living?’ It was Jeongmi’s mission to prove that it is possible to survive without money. What begins as a journey of survival takes a turn that the protagonist could not have predicted. Throughout her journey of survival without money, Jeongmi encounters other important human needs: the need for love and self-realization. She realizes that the power to feed herself, give herself unconditional love, and transform her life into infinite possibilities is not money or her ability, but connection. Through connection with nature, connection with other humans, connection with other living things, connection with everything in the world, and connection with the true myself, the anxiety of survival, the loneliness of love, and the emptiness of existence are healed.
This is the story of Jeongmi’s transformation. You can feel all the changes that happen to her through her hands, feet, and voice. The hands and feet of a true Earthling are rough and dirty. The true voice of the heart is transparent. I hope you see how Jeongmi’s voice of the heart and her hands and feet change together. A journey to see the world through the eyes of the heart and follow the voice of the heart. Traveling together through the camera on the protagonist’s chest I hope that the vibration of connection will resonate in your heart as well.

DIRECTOR

PARK Jeongmi

After completing the two-year project of 'living without spending money for one year,’ she returned to Korea in 2016. In 2022, she published a book titled Living Without Touching Money which tells the story of her journey. Now she is living in a deserted house at the foot of Mountain Jirisan and is in the process of making her first feature film, Blanket Wearer.

CONTACTfund@jeonjufest.kr