If you’re one of those people who likes to leave a movie theater feeling sentimental and nostalgic, watching carefully singled out films at the Ewha Womans University Museum can transport you into thinking about the forgotten value of motherhood.
The Ewha Womans University Museum is holding an International Film Festival entitled “Scent of Mother’s Love” at its Audio Visual room and co-hosting an art exhibition titled “Motherhood, Mother Images in Korean Art, Mother Images in Asian Contemporary Art,” from May 11 to 19 at the Modern Art Gallery and Temporary Exhibition Hall.
“The festival and exhibition have been organized to commemorate the Ewha Womans University’s 126th Anniversary, celebrate parents’ day on May 8 and think about the meaning of motherhood,” said one of the curators of the international film festival. “Maternity is a universal value that can be shared in the artworks, media works and films of the world.”
The museum has organized the festival and exhibition for visitors to catch a glimpse of the changing roles and meaning of motherhood throughout history.
In the International Film festival “Scent of Mother’s Love,” will show a total of 12 international films including three media art works, five films and four animations from 10 countries throughout the eight days.
From an animation about a mother bird who gives unconditional love, to a director who documented her daughter for 10 years and made it into a film, the festival is filled with touching narratives, artistic cinema techniques and humor.
“Films have been selected to provide viewers with a sense of the maternity projected in different culture,” the curator said.
The festival opens with media art works directed by Chinese, Japanese, and Russian artists for 50 minutes.
“Norwegian Woods” is a story about a daughter and her mother who recently passed away. The daughter takes a journey of blurring boundaries between real and surreal world while going through the things left behind by her mother.
Painting the Japanese society in the 1980s, “Hideo, It’s me. Mama” is a black comedy film about a trend of video machines sweeping the nation and a social problem of mothers being obsessed with their children. The director portrays a housewife who gradually attaches the emptiness of emotions to a video machine instead of her child.
A Russian director brings to the screen a heroic mother’s journeys to save her family who has been eaten by a huge water monster through a non-fiction animation, “Once upon a time there lived a mother.”
The sacrifice of mother’s love is well delivered through a folk-tale based film “Kare Kare Zvako-Mother’s Day.” The film is about a mother who obtains fried ants with difficulties to feed her children suffering from prolonged famine and her greedy husband who takes all the ants and punishes the mother.
“Birth Dialogue,” delves deep into a true story about a husband and wife who decide to have their baby at home instead of at a hospital. The film captures the husband and wife going through the birthing experience together.
Films and documentaries will be provided with English subtitles for all non-Korean speakers. The festival is free of charge.
The exhibition co-hosted with the festival “Motherhood” will be displayed from May 11 to July 31.
“There are art pieces interpreting mothers as a benevolent goddess of birth to a courageous figure with strength. It is the first attempt in Korea to organize an exhibition which carries this special meaning,” the curator said.