Seol Suan, the director known for her short documentaries including Complicated Order (2007), which questions life as a vegetarian, and Kungfu Tea (2017), which explores the ambivalent emotions regarding tea culture, shifts her focus to the land of farmers. Time of Seeds documents the changes in the land by the 24 solar terms, observing the labor of elderly farmers who harvest seeds from crops. In a time when different generations who have other agricultural methods and different food coexist, the elderly farmers continue their work, donating the harvested seeds to preserve native species. The camera collects evidence of the “hardships of harvest up” close instead of exhibiting the “joy of harvest from” afar. The film captures the scenes of elderly farmers bending their bodies while planting seeds, burning garlic fields, and stomping on corn to collect the kernels. It slowly and repetitively shows the laborious nature of the harvest as if eloquently arguing for the film’s flowing pace. In another aspect of the film, researchers collect native seeds. The film inserts their conversations to assist understanding and nature sounds, such as the chirping of a cuckoo bird, that leave a lasting impression. As a result, viewers quietly understand the significance of the elderly farmer’s “Sae-am (spring water)” mentioned at the end. The way the film shows mirrors its subjects. [NAM Sunwoo]