Areum PARKKANG was born in 1982 in Yeongman, South Jeolla Province, South Korea. When she turned 15, she screened a film at a church that criticized the church, and this marked the beginning of her filmmaking career. She studied film at Cheongju University and Yonsei University Graduate School of Communication and Arts, and later on taught film to students in middle school and high school while making her own. Her first feature film “Areum” (2016) was invited to the First Appearance Competition section at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The same year, the film was nominated as one of 10 best documentaries directed by female filmmakers eligible for the AWFJ EDA awarded by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. After moving to France in 2015, PARKKANG started studying feminist videos at Fine Arts School of Nord-Pas de Calais while working on projects that connect her studies to personal documentaries. While traveling between Korea and France, Areum PARKKANG looks closely at how women can voice their thoughts politically in a patriarchal society while working on her films and video projects. “Areum Married” (2019) is her second feature documentary.
While working on her first documentary film, director Areum meets a progressive party activist and a chef, Seongman, and gets married. After getting married, she takes Seongman with her to study in France, which she has long been preparing to do. In France, the only thing Seongman can do is housework. Not being able to read or speak the language…