<GgangSuni, the laborer of the Sure Products (Ggangsuni,suerproductsnodongja)> (1989)

Production, Director : The People’s Film Research Center (Lee Sang-in, Lee Chang-won)
Year of Production : 1989
Genre : Documentary
Format : Video/ Color
Running Time : 58 minutes

Synopsis

One of the most important documentaries to be produced by The People’s Film Research Center, it is considered to be a work which captures the immediate reality of the situation. In January of 1989, Lee Sang-in and Lee Chang-won - both members of the The People’s Film Research Center - went on location to the labor strike at Sure Products at the Guro industrial complex. Sure Products is a multinational company of which 50 % is owned by American. On December 29th, 1988, the company unilaterally declared that it would close its doors and the laborers began their struggle to get the company to end its “false closing of the business,” and open the company again. Lee Sang-in and Lee Chang-won lived with the laborers of the factory for 2 months, recording their struggles and inner dilemmas on film in the form of a documentary and release it titled, GgangSuni, the laborer of the Sure Products. (Excerpt from “Independent Korean Documentaries” (Yedam Publishers, 2003))

Notes

It vividly reports the scene of labor strikes and the laborers. (Kim Dong-won)
The documentary uses the first person narrative of the youngest of the laborers in order to reveal the agonies and struggles of their daily lives. It is considered to have overcome the overly abstract and explanatory style of documentary film making which was pervasive in the late 1980s. But the movie centers around the transformation in the awareness of the narrator and is not entirely successful in escaping the then cliched scheme of documentaries which dealt with the change in awareness of the labor class. Yet, the movie was a meaningful attempt in the sense that it showed the life and struggles of laborers and successfully captured their human side on film. (Excerpt from “Independent Korean Documentaries” (Yedam Publishers, 2003))

People’s Film Research Center

The People’s Film Research Center was founded in August of 1988 by Lee Jeong-ha and Yi Hyo-in who were members of the Seoul Visual Collective. They advocated a movement in which film would participate in the democratization movement of the working class, and supported their beliefs through theoretical study and movie production. They were especially active in producing video documentaries, collaborating with the Labor Union Association of the Seoul Area in producing and distributing educational documentaries. Their most well known work is GgangSuni, the laborer of Sure Products. Their most well-known research publication is [Cinema of the People 1, 2].