Synopsis

​ Graves and Wills: A Movie Lesson for Daughters is a movie that begins, ends, and concludes as the filming begins. It's a movie about a child's birth, growing up, and family memories. The grave becomes the stage, the will becomes the dialog, and the VR image that contains all of the three images meets the grave. Through this film, the director, a father, teaches his daughter that a movie is something on the border, like a grave, and that it is a huge universe, like a mandala, in which a child's precious time, characters, memories, narratives, thoughts, and imagination live and breathe.

Program Note

​ The film weaves together three distinct scenes: "Beginning," "Beginning and End," and "End," creating a tapestry of conflicting images and situations. Within these layers, we encounter themes of life and death, birth and extinction, youth and aging, documentary and fiction, and the realm outside the cinema and within it. Instead of seeing life and death as mere endings, the film portrays them as a continuous cycle. Furthermore, this cycle intertwines with the process of capturing and preserving video images, which symbolize the birth, growth, and eventual decay of these life moments. Through this exploration, we gain wisdom death and extinction as natural aspects of the universe. (Maeng Soojin)

Director

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  • Choi Jonghan
  • Choi Jonghan is an experimental film director and researcher, holding a Ph.D. in Literature from Sogang University. Currently, he is active as a professor in the Film, Webtoon, and Animation Department at Semyung University, as well as the director of the experimental film research institute, Lab eX. He also serves as an executive committee member of the EXiS Seoul International Experimental Film Festival. His films, including Image Concerto: Sakhalin-Jecheon-Moscow Project, have been screened at various film festivals and art institutions such as the Jecheon International Music & Film Festival, EXiS Seoul International Experimental Film Festival, Nemaf Seoul International New Media Festival, KLEX, and Seoul Museum of Art.