Synopsis of Documentary

From The KorAm Interview:
Those Forgotten Still Remember
Grace Yoo explores untold stories of the Korean War
By Corina Knoll
Photograph by Jimmy Lee

“For Korean Americans, war is not an other experience. It’s really part of our experience and, of all people, we should understand the implications of war and what it does to people, what it does to everyday human beings.”

“That’s why I just felt this was meant to happen,” says Yoo. “He worked for the Korean Japanese television network in Japan. He’s just so innovative, so talented. He’s such a passionate person as well and so committed to what this documentary was all about. He kind of became my family.”

Together, Yoo and Kim dedicated nearly three years to their project, which was funded through several small grants and their own personal funds. Kim, who served as director, editor and videographer for the film, recently returned to Japan and the 28-year-old is now trying to find an American company who will sponsor his return.

In the meantime, Yoo is promoting “Stories Untold” on her own, although the film industry is still completely new to her, and she calls her decision to try filmmaking “totally intimidating.”

Using first-generation KA subjects that she met through some of her research focus groups at SFSU, Yoo conducted interviews for her documentary that lasted sometimes up to 10 hours. But spending long hours with interviewees allowed each one to fully detail his or her story.

It was life changing, life altering for them,” says Yoo. “They lost property, they lost a child - I mean, I’m not sure our generation can completely understand. Of course, our generation experienced the Los Angeles Riots … but the Korean War was for three years and about total displacement. It’s hard to imagine losing your home, losing a child, losing family members, not knowing where they are.”

While men and women are in “Stories Untold,” the film talks mostly about the war experiences of women, and shows footage and photos of young mothers attempting to flee their hometowns with babies on their backs.

“If you look at the Korean War, it’s everyone from General [Douglas] MacArthur to the president talking about the war,” explains Yoo. “You never hear about it in English from a civilian perspective, and of course, you never hear it from a female perspective. It’s so funny, when we were doing these interviews, all these harabuhjis (grandfathers) would go on and on and on. In fact they’re in the video because I felt they needed to share their stories. But at some point we needed to say, ‘Harabuhji, we’re really here because we want to interview halmoni (grandmother).’”
While Yoo did explore stories about mothers during the war, what struck her the most while working on “Stories Untold” was the tragedy that comes with civil war.

“What I found so horrendous about understanding this war was you had these foreign people coming in, but it became people fighting each other, you know, neighbors fighting each other.

“It’s something we didn’t put in the film, but neighbors would narc on other people, so the sense of trust among Koreans was totally disrupted. That’s what I found most amazing about this. I didn’t know that people had these shifting ideologies that changed.”

Although at 4 years old, Yoo’s son is too young to understand the documentary he inspired, his mother definitely wants him one day to comprehend the ramifications of the Korean War.

“For Korean Americans, war is not an other experience,” says Yoo. “It’s really part of our experience and, of all people, we should understand the implications of war and what it does to people, what it does to everyday human beings.”