SYNOPSIS

The documentary starts with a diva of a tragic family history related to a history of migration. The rare archival footage reanimates her history reverberating with the current world crisis. Sound of Nomad: Koryo Arirang is a testimonial – a witness to injustice and tragedy, but it is also a declaration of survival – a survival that is not static but transformative – not brittle but fluid. The trains that displace, the deserts that separate form one harsh horizon – a historical limit – but within that limit, against it and across it are people, are a culture, not escaping but flourishing unofficially, with the affective majesty of a melody, a rhythm, an Arirang

PRORAM NOTE

Sound of Nomad: Koryo Arirang takes us to two
 divas of Korean Theater, a Korean musical and
 dramatic theater in Kazakhstan. Although the film
 mainly focuses on the interview and life of BANG
 Tamara and on the remembrance of LEE Ham-deok,
 the first Chun-hyang of the theater and an actress
 awarded for \"People\'s Actress,\" and on the archival
 footages, we need to encounter the routes itself and
 the scenery on the road and the history built upon
 the road. Thus we need to accompany this travel to
 get acquainted with any characters in the film. This is
 about spectators\' attitudes when dealing with subjects
 in the documentary films, and it is a chance to ponder
 on how these \'Korean people\' in Kazakhstan shape
 its form in the Korean spectators.\' The history of
 Korean people in Kazakhstan has nothing to do with
 the expansion—or adding another layer of \'national
 history.\' The travel in the film invites diverse existences
 which are irreducible to the national history. The
 irreducible diversity includes the history of USSR,
 the way to historicize anti-Japanese struggles during
 Japanese colonial period, the racial relationships
 between Korean and other races in USSR, and
 the location of North Korea within the international
 and Asian order (which is obliterated from Korean
 recognition). The national history is deconstructed as
 such, not expanded. Sound of Nomad: Koryo Arirang
 provides an inspiration for historiography in the postnational
 era. [HWANG Miyojo]