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'Water Lilies' Narrative - Youth Struggle to Survive In Korea (WUFF, NY)
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Water Lilies - Hyowon, who dreams of becoming an actress, runs away to Seoul with Eunseo, a high school dropout. The two girls step into the sprawling city with their fragile hopes, clutching at its promises like lifelines. Their first home is a basement room, dim and shabby, the air thick and heavy. But, to them, it is a sanctuary, a nest of possibilities. Eunseo begins working odd jobs to keep them afloat while Hyowon, drawn by her dream, takes on menial tasks at a theater company. They are buoyed by their own visions of tomorrow, their dreams threading through the cracks in the worn walls.
Soon, Hyowon starts taking acting lessons from Suyeon, a lead actress at the theater. Suyeon’s voice is steady, her words sharp: "Acting is the art of embodying another’s suffering". Hyowon listens, but the weight of those words eludes her. She cannot yet grasp the depths of Eunseo’s pain, nor can Eunseo fully see hers. The two drift, parallel yet apart, their lives entangled by need and longing but marred by unspoken distance.
The city presses in, relentless. Their lives fracture under the strain of survival, yet questions linger in the spaces between them. What does it mean to carry someone else’s sorrow? What does it mean to live with your own? For them, life is an unanswered question, fragile as the surface of water, trembling under the weight of its own reflections.
Water Lilies is, on a broader level, a story about the glass ceiling faced by the younger generation. Many young people strive to realize their dreams, only to find themselves up against immense and invisible barriers. The workings of power, laced with human selfishness, may be creating walls that feel insurmountable to them. (2024, 1 hr 59m, South Korea, Director: Chanho Lee)
PRECEDED BY:
Bang Bang: Backbone of A Mountain City - Chongqing, a city built on mountains in Southwestern China, remains a stronghold of porters known as “bang bang” who move goods along streets on the rugged terrain. But the porters are slowly fading from view in the face of modernization. From 400,000 people working as bang bang in the city in 2010, they have shrunk to fewer than 2,000, mostly elderly. Are they really disappearing one day? Or are they simply evolving into modern-day bang bang? This film follows a few of them to see where they’re headed. (2025, 14m, China, Director: Guan Yi)