Synopsis

While delivering newspapers, a young girl meets a woman who has lost her daughter—the same age as the girl herself. The woman, who once attended university and worked at a magazine, seems to live a life both different from and oddly similar to that of the poor girl’s mother.

Program Note

Two Women is set in a time when elementary schools were still called “people’s schools” in Korea. It captures a brief conversation between an educated woman who once worked as a journalist but now wanders in search of her lost daughter, handing out flyers, and a 12-year-old girl delivering newspapers to pay for a broken cosmetic item she damaged while trying to buy a birthday gift for her mother. As the woman buys the girl ice cream and they talk, their exchange serves as a compressed glimpse into the lives many women in Korean society have endured—and some still do. The guilt and quiet despair shared by the two women transcend generational and economic boundaries, revealing a common thread. A simple narrative holding profound thematic depth. (Choi Eun-young)

Director

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  • Jang Sunhee
  • Jang Sunhee earned her Master’s degree in Film from the Korean National University of Arts. With Two Women (2022), she won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2nd Seoul LACSPUR International Film Festival.