#WithRefugees hits Seoul with films, music, stories
Scenes from "The Unforgotten," with Korean actor Jung Woo-sung, top, featured as the film's narrator. UNHCR
By Ko Dong-hwan
A United Nations-led global movement to embrace refugees worldwide, “#WithRefugees,” hits Seoul on June 25 for a week-long schedule of films, musical performances and guest visits by celebrities and refugees.
The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR's Seoul representatives said it is the only week-long event in the world following World Refugee Day on June 20.
#WithRefugees began in April in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. It spread and inspired people worldwide to create offline events or campaigns on social media. These included a football match between refugees and journalists in Senegal, a film screening in central Oslo, a refugee art exhibition in San Salvador and a refugee community garden work day in Kent, Washington.
#WithRefugees will be marked in cities across South Korea, including on Jeju Island, where the number of asylum seekers from Yemen recently spiked, and Seoul.
The campaign will begin with UNHCR Seoul releasing on Instagram and Facebook Korean artist Yana Lee's short animation about a family of birds on a journey to find a new nest after a lightning destroyed their home ― representing refugees searching for new place to live.
UNHCR Seoul's goodwill ambassador, Korean actor Jung Woo-sung, will share his experiences in Iraq and Bangladesh, where he met refugees, at the “2018 Jeju Forum.”
The award-winning A-list actor narrated the 2018 Korean film “Intention,” an investigative documentary about the Sewol ferry that sank off Jindo Island in 2014, killing over 300 passengers, mostly high school students.
On “refugee movie night” at the Lotte Cinema on Eulgiro 1-ga Street in Jongno-gu, Seoul, three documentary films will be screened, mixed with guest visits joined by Jung, UNHCR Seoul public information officer Shin Heinn and journalist-turned-film director Nikola Ivanovski from London.
The event also features the release of the campaign's film “The Unforgotten,” a documentary about 10-year-old Hoda ― a girl who has a hearing disability ― from a refugee camp in Iraq. UNHCR has been producing a documentary yearly since 2016.
The campaign will host a Facebook Live event with author Pyo Myung-hee who wrote “One day, a Refugee,” a fictional story about refugees in Korea, and Nani Ronel Chakma, a recognized Jumma refugee from Bangladesh who arrived in Korea in 2000.
“#WithRefugees in Seoul, as well as campaigns in other countries, are motivated and bound by the 1951 UNHCR Refugee Convention,” Shin told The Korea Times.