Crossings Film Screening and Conversation with Director and Activists

Robinson S.P.A.C.E.
104 Robinson Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Join us on Sunday, August 7th for a matinee screening of Crossings, 2021 by acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem, followed by an invigorating conversation between Deann, the writer, director, and producer of the film, Christine Ahn, the founder and Executive Director of Women Cross DMZ, Aiyoung Choi, a life-long advocate for social justice and peace and the Board Chair of Women Cross DMZ, moderated by Cathi Choi, an activist and attorney based in Los Angeles.
In Crossings, a group of international women peacemakers set out on a risky journey across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, calling for an end to a 70-year war that has divided the Korean peninsula and its people. Comprised of Nobel Peace Laureates and renowned activists like Gloria Steinem and Christine Ahn, the intrepid team faced daunting logistical and political challenges as they forged a path with their Korean sisters toward peace and reconciliation.
As U.S. tensions with China escalate, the U.S. Navy continues to poison O’ahu’s water supply, the Pentagon budget balloons, and RIMPAC war games ravage the Pacific, organizing for demilitarization is more urgent than ever. Join us as we discuss the legacy of the Korean War and imagine a world free from rampant militarization for our people and for our planet. We will discuss the through lines connecting Korean peace efforts to movements across the globe, from Hawai’i to Guahan (Guam) – from Okinawa to Jejudo. We will also discuss the mechanics of “feminist” diplomacy and organizing and the strategic construction and use of dramatic, symbolic events to catalyze change and raise awareness.

This event is co-presented by GYOPO and WCDMZ. All donations received with RSVPs for this program will be shared evenly between the two organizations. We would like to thank Robinson S.P.A.C.E. for their incredible generosity and hospitality.

GYOPO: An Interview with Deann Borshay Liem by Alison Choi

How did you start the documentary project for Crossings?
Christine Ahn, who is the main protagonist in the film, and I have known each other for a while. She and I had the opportunity to go to North Korea together a number of years ago with a Korean American seed scientist. I was interested in possibly developing a documentary about the famine that happened in North Korea in the nineties, and was very interested in what life was like for ordinary people there. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get that film funded, but a number of years later, Christine contacted me with this idea to go to North Korea to call for a formal end to the Korean War, and to take a group of women to cross the DMZ from North to South Korea. As a Korean adopted person who was separated from my family in the South through international adoption, I really see the divided family situation through an adoption lens. I see my own adoption and separation from my Korean family against this larger backdrop of war and division. Our experience as adopted people mirrors the longing and desire for millions of family members who want to see each other on either side of the DMZ. When Christine told me about this trip and asked me if I wanted to go, particularly reunification of families, of course I immediately said yes.

Who are the people featured in Crossings?
Christine Ahn was the primary organizer and she was the one who actually went to North Korea to request and receive permission to bring the women to the North. She brought together this incredible group – you had celebrity activists like Gloria Steinem, who is this feminist pioneer in the United States, and two Nobel laureates, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia and Mairead Maguire from Ireland. People like Abigail Disney, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, cofounders of CODEPINK, a very active anti-war organization. And then people like Suzy Kim, Aiyoung Choi, as well as a variety of women who had been working on various political and grassroots peace, social justice, anti-militarism work in different countries, from Guam, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and other countries.

In some ways I feel the film is very much about this group of women and how they navigate differences of race, culture, language; different understandings of Korean War history and how they implement this collective action, come together, build trust, and build solidarity.

It’s also a film that does raise questions about how women of diverse backgrounds come together, how do they not replicate white western feminist imperialism? How do they actually work through difference, in their questions of hierarchy, all those kinds of things when you are doing collective action.

I, as the filmmaker, was interested in how the women, people like Medea Benjamin, Abigail Disney, Gloria Steinem, these pretty well known people, how do they respond to being in North Korea, in particular? How do they see this country, what are their reactions? Of course, I was interested in the Korean diasporic experience on the trip. But I think for audiences to understand this issue, and wanting the broader general American public to watch the film, I thought it was important that people have the opportunity to hear from these non-Korean women.

In addition to whether or not they would be able to cross the DMZ and all the challenges that came with trying to do that, the key narrative arc came down to this question of whether the women on the delegation could see the North Korean people as human beings. Whether they were able to overcome their preconceptions of what North Korea is and who North Korean people are; see the humanity in the people.

That doesn’t seem like a momentous challenge, but in the case of North Korea, it is very difficult to mobilize empathy for North Korea and its people. It is especially difficult for Americans because we are conditioned to see North Korean people in a particular way, and because the war is unended. We tend to see North Korea as robots that have no free will, slavishly following a mad dictator. There were lots of questions from the delegation of women, as you see in the film. Do the people in North Korea have free will?

A turning point in the film is when the North Korean women share their experiences of what they survived during the war. I don’t think the delegates’ doubts about the North Korean regime or government ever lessened, but I think that in the end they were able to hear the [North Korean] women’s stories, and acknowledge that the North Korean women were human beings. They were like women experiencing war in any war zone. That was what the key narrative arc became in the film, as well as the crossing itself.

What influence has this film had on yourself as a filmmaker?
Through making the film, one of the things I was reminded of – this a constant process for me – is listening. As a filmmaker, of course I watch all the dailies, go through all the transcripts multiple times, try to listen, and the first 30 times I might see certain things. But by the time I’m a month, three months, a year into the editing, I suddenly see in the same interview completely different things. I think it takes me a long time to listen deeply and not impose my own thinking. Instead, to give room, to allow myself to really hear what people are saying. That was a very long process!

V.I.Q.’s (Very Important Questions)

Favorite summertime food?
I love perilla leaves. Kkaennip (깻잎). I’m growing them in my backyard. I love any kind of barbecue with perilla leaves and lettuce. I will eat perilla leaves and anything – pickles, chopped in salads, I love perilla leaves.

Would you rather be a cloud for a day, or the moon for a night?
Ahh – a moon for the night 🌛