South Korean Premiere About Factory Sick Workers a Coup for Independent Film

When South Korean director Kim Tae-yun said he wanted to make a film about workers who came down with leukemia and other rare diseases during the time they worked at Samsung Electronics Co. factories, just about everyone told him he would struggle to secure financial backing. Two years later, the film has premiered at the ongoing Busan International Film Festival‒in part thanks to crowd-sourced funds from nearly 7,000 individuals who paid for more than a quarter of the billion-won ($932,700) budget. Close to half was self-funded and the rest has been made as IOUs. It marks a rare coup for Korean cinema, where independent producers struggle to secure funding without support from major film studios. Critics say close family and business ties between major movie companies and the nation’s biggest corporations prevent films with negative portrayals of those conglomerates from being made. The film has already won a mention in a recent report by U.S. watchdog Freedom House as an example of progress for South Korea’s freedom of expression. Titled “Another Family,” the film is based on a true story of a working-class family whose daughter went to work at Samsung semiconductor factory, contracted leukemia during her time there and died from the disease in 2007.
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