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Fiction ㅣ JEONJU Cinema Project: Next Edition - Korean

Unplug

SHEKH Al Mamun
Korea 70min HD Color Fiction
Production StatusPre-Production
Goal of ParticipationFundraising
Production budget180,000,000 KRW
Budget Required160,000,000 KRW
Secured budget
  • Self-funding : 20,000,000 KRW
LOGLINE

A Story of four friends: Selim, a migrant worker who can't go home; a gay couple, Rahman and Franco; and Sungil, who is disabled.

SYNOPSIS

Selim is a migrant worker in Korea who is preparing to return home. He needs a place to stay for a while—he visits a furniture factory town to meet his friend Rahman. Rahman introduces Selim to his special friend Franco. Selim's heart aches when he hears from his family, who ask Selim if he can stay in South Korea and continue to send money to the family. From then on, Selim spends his everyday life with Rahman and the others. He finds his true family, friends, and himself. Since Selim can't go back to his home country at the request of his family, he gets a job at a furniture factory. When Franco, who was not a registered migrant, is forced to leave Korea, Rahman falls into sadness. While being chased by immigration crackdown officers, Selim gets severely injured…

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

As of 2023, there are 2.43 million migrants in South Korea—1.3 million of whom are migrant workers and 430,000 unregistered migrants without visas. Migrant workers are working in precarious and dangerous industries where Koreans do not want to work and are treated as machines because of their skin colors and language barriers. Sometimes, their families back home treat them as money machines. Eventually, they become isolated and fail to be a part of either community.
Director SHEKH Al Mamun was born in Bangladesh and lived the life of a migrant worker at a furniture factory in Maseok, Korea, in 1998. He said in Unplug, "Migrants are everywhere; they are always with us, and it is an unstable and difficult journey to leave the birthplace and live in another country."

INTERVIEW
What inspired you to start this project?
The project Unplug started with my own life. I started my journey in Korea as a migrant worker in 1998, and now I've met many people and places to capture the various problems and lives of migrants. The project began with the urge to tell the stories of myself and the people around me—not as how they’re so often portrayed in current films and shows, in such a fragmented way—who have different personalities, looks, and ways of thinking.
Is there any emotion you want the audience to feel after watching this film?
I want to give the audience more messages than "migrant workers are having tough lives" or "migrant workers are here just to make money." I'd like to introduce what their inner souls are like: how migrant lives are like and what family means to them. Also, I want to give the audience a moment to think about their own lives, the migrant lives, and the minorities who live within our society.
DIRECTOR
SHEKH Al Mamun
Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1974. He came to Korea in 1998 as a migrant worker and has been working on migrant workers' rights since 2001, and is currently active in the Asia Media Culture Factory, a migrant cultural arts organization. He has directed 11 fiction films and documentaries, including Paki (2013) and Perm (2021), the opening film of the 2022 Diaspora Film Festival.
Perm (2021), No Way Out (2022), Miho's Journey (2023)
PRODUCER
HAN Jihee
Graduated from the Department of Film Production at Beijing Film Academy in 2014. She returned to Korea and has been working as an interpreter of a Korea-China joint project and coordinator of the Migrant World Film Festival. Since then, she has worked on three films with director SHEKH Al Mamun, starting with the production team of Perm (2021).
Perm (2021), Errand (2022), Her Hobby (2023)
CONTACTmamun97@naver.com
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