Movements to empower the LGBT community

Empowering the Queer community through culture

“Gaybongbakdoo 5: In an open relationship” is the title of the film festival held on Sept. 2. Gaybongbakdoo, an annual film festival, is one of the most renowned LGBT film festivals in Korea, a project conducted by Gay Culture School in Chingusai.
Established in 1994, Chingusai is the oldest Korean organization in the fight for the rights of sexual minorities. From coming out projects to cultural events, Chingusai aims to build a society where people with various sexual orientations can be treated equally. 
One of their most well-known projects, Gaybongbakdoo, a smart phone queer movie making project, released their fifth round of films with the theme of “open relationship.” Quoted from the Facebook status, Gaybongbakdoo 5 filmed the characters’ honest hearts towards their romantic relationships. The first screening was held in Indie Space, the first independent film theater established in Korea.
The first film of the three, Dom shows the story of seeking for true love through a condom exchanged between three men. The next film, The Turning Road is about a gay man who falls in love with a heterosexual, and how he grows from experiencing the pain of not being able to express his feelings. The last film, Tilted Summer looks into what causes the imbalance of emotions in a romantic relationship.
Besides Gaybongbakdoo, Chingusai is empowering the LGBT community through various projects. 
Connect Your Heart, which started in 2014, is a suicide prevention project for sexual minorities. Its goal is to lower the suicide rate of sexual minorities by informing people in and out of the LGBT community about the seriousness of the problem. PL (People Living with HIV/AIDS) is a self-help group within Chingusai that supports people with HIV/AIDS. Kiss AIDS Salon, a regular meeting event in PL, was designed to support people coming out as infectees and talk about themselves in a comfortable atmosphere, with an ultimate goal to root out the sexual stigma towards people with AIDS.
Chingusai also expands their projects to family members on LGBT Family Gathering project. This gathering project supports family members of sexual minorities by helping them understand their children or siblings as a sexual minority, which can be a different matter from accepting others outside the family circle.

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