Our Journey is a series of short films and a book inspired by the Yemen refugee issue in Jeju Island.
We explore the lives of several of the refugees and their journey so far, talking about their lives before entering Jeju and after. We question the idea of several words that we all take for granted in our everyday life, and what they mean to us all. Dreams, hope, struggle, family, passion, and life. These words often have very simple associations to us but to refugees, these words can cause fear, pain or sometimes delight.
Since arriving on Jeju in May 2018, the refugees have clearly found it difficult to integrate into society, but they are trying their best to fit in, and trying all they can to find some peace and find a new place to call home after leaving their war-torn country.
Unable to return for fear of death or potentially being enlisted into the fight, they are now spending their time in search of a new place to call home.
But is their idea of home a place of beauty, or is it something as simple as having a place to rest their heads without fear?
Unable to return for fear of death or being enlisted into the fight, they are now spending their time in search of a new home and a small piece of paradise. But is their idea of paradise a place of beauty, or is it something as simple as having a place to rest their heads?
Commissioned by UMAX, a Korean TV channel I produced a film about Sohn Kee Chung, the marathon runner who won the 1936 Berlin Olympic gold medal and the only gold medalist, to date, to never hear his own national anthem played whilst standing on the podium.
Produced and Directed by Jake Smith
Photographed, produced and edited by Neil P. George
Synopsis:
Using interviews, archive and observational footage, While They Watched draws on the power of hindsight. After hearing the tragic backstories of defectors who were first-hand witnesses to the brutality of the regime, the film questions the morality of the current inaction by regional and global powers towards the North Korean dictatorship.
Director Jake J. Smith compiles a collection of testimonies from former North Korean gulag soldiers and propaganda agents, ex-leaders of the ‘underground railroad’ through China, professors of Korean history, hardened activists, NGO leaders, and defectors who risked their lives to tell their stories hoping to free the minds of North Koreans. Testimonies are given in the past tense from the context of an imaginary future after the collapse of the regime. This gives the interviews a unique quality allowing contributors distance and clarity to better reveal key local and international players in the unfolding disaster, and what nations, institutions and individuals tried in an attempt to change the fate of the country.
The film carefully highlights the activities of certain defectors and activists, revealing underground activities largely unknown to the outside world. Their stories, the direct action many are using to impact the regime, and the threats they face, paint a frightening picture of life in North Korea.
