In South-Korea you can buy poop bread, DVD stores offer shelters for sex and a lot of people long to have a small face. German-Korean filmmaker Katti investigates those idiosyncracies of her mom’s home country. Together with her German filmpartner Finnja, Katti flies to Seoul to ask, why do Koreans appreciate poop? Where is the small face obsession coming from? What do the sex shelters show us about society? They find a poop philosopher, face shrinking massages and home making machines. Deep inside Korea, Katti longs to build a second home there while Finnja questions her own home idea.
CAST
Aaron Adelsman
Youngjoo Cho
Hyunju Chung
Sung Un Gang
Jan Janowski
Sansung Je
Hye In Kim
Kyung Han Kim
Myoungeun Kim
Kyung-Min Ko
Seung Young Lee
Udo Lee
Jung Eun Park
Katti Jisuk Seo
Sun Mi Song
Finnja Willner
Hana Yoo
CREW
Directed by: Katti Jisuk Seo & Finnja Willner
Written by: Katti Jisuk Seo
DOP: Finnja Willner
Produced by: Katti Jisuk Seo & Finnja Willner
Edited by: Katti Jisuk Seo
Animations by: Katti Jisuk Seo & Finnja Willner
Digital Animations by: Alejandra Tomei
Music: Peter Ehwald & Ensemble Su
Sound Design: Andreas Fertig
Color Grading: Sergi Sánchez Rodriguez
Katti Jisuk Seo is a Korean-German writer, filmmaker and life & business coach from Berlin. Finnja Willner is a visual anthropologist, filmmaker and somatic researcher based in Berlin. How About Having a Fascination of Mind is Katti’s and Finnja’s debut documentary feature.
How can I behave towards Korea so that Korea will behave like a home to me?
We know that we see the world only through our own glasses, created by our own familiar environment. And whenever I try to understand other cultures, I always have the feeling that I cage them into my subjective concepts of life. So whenever I leave Berlin and visit my mom’s home country, South Korea, I feel the longing to break my windows of reality or at least change them or colour grade them to capture Korea.
Kimchi, K-Pop, gaming, and costumes — all those well-exported images of South Korea make me feel like I am standing outside of Korea. If I want to get deeper into Korean society, I have to find a different door. I want to follow the things that amaze me but confuse me at the same time. That’s the door we are entering in How About Having a Fascination of Mind.
When I met filmmaker Finnja, I knew I wanted her to be my partner in crime for this film because of the way Finnja lets herself be surprised by the things that unfold beneath the surface. In How About Having a Fascination of Mind, we go on a journey that breaks with our clichés and challenges our concepts of home.
FESTIVALS
Korea Independent (Germany)
Boddinale (Germany)
La Voz de la mujer (Spain)
Etnovideográfica (Spain)
Cecil County Independent Film Festival (USA)
Mostra Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico (Spain)
Golden Tree International Documentary Festival (France)
AWARDS
Etnovideográfica (Spain) *Winner of the Cowbell Jury Award*