Unforgettable screens of amazing animated films at the 2022 New Jersey International Film Festival on June 4!

Unforgettable is a deeply effective animated short from Sujin Kim telling stories about the plight of comfort women enslaved by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film uses otherworldly imagery and symbolism as various stories about being a comfort woman are told. The stories are devastating, detailing the hard truths of theft and exploitation. The animation is beautifully executed, both impressive and impactful. Unforgettable is a wonderfully put together and impactful collage that poignantly conveys the nightmare of being a comfort woman.

The shifting landscapes of the film as the various stories are told capture the scale and pain of each devastating tale. Often, comfort women were tricked into being enslaved with schemes such as offering toffee to a young girl or by promising young women accommodation to take up work making uniforms. The beautiful oasis we see for the first time with women living peacefully is disturbed by a large menacing figure chained in the distance, plotting on the women below. We are then shown red boxes struggling to stay afloat in the water, only to sink and be captured by a haunting stone humanoid figure, who represents the malevolent captors. The small size of the boxes compared to the scale of the faceless humanoid figure conveys the magnitude of the power the brothel owners had over these young women and girls.

Threatened with being killed after disobeying, the girls are locked in rooms where they have been sexually exploited. As another grandmother describes when she realized she was trapped in a brothel, the red walls of the exhibited rooms were dispersed into other small red boxes. The imagery continues to harmonize with the story in an unconventional and poetic way. The illusion of safety in these rooms shatters with this devastating reality. She then details how the women would resort to killing themselves, and a red cape falls from one of the rooms and descends into the now vacant ethereal oasis. The image of the fallen cape is incredibly touching and persistent.

Other striking images were the shattered hollow statues of women and the remains of female stone giantesses under dark skies, signifying the impact of the horrific abuse suffered by women. Through both images, the gravity of the disintegration of comfort women is deeply felt and understood. Grandma’s last narration expresses how now that so much time has passed, she finally has the freedom to expose what happened to her. All of these stories are told with the aim of permanently preventing the sexual exploitation of women in times of war. Unforgettable is incredibly impactful and innovatively tells the stories that will prevent the suffering of women in wartime in the future.

Unforgettable will be screened as part of New Jersey International Film Festival Short Film Program #1 Saturday, June 4, 2022 – Online for 24 hours and in person at 5 p.m.! For more information on this screening, go to here.

27^e annual New Jersey International Film Festival will take place on select Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between June 3 and 12. The Festival will be hybrid as we will present it online and do in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All films will be available virtually via video on demand for 24 hours on their broadcast date. Every ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for virtual and in-person screenings. In-person screenings will take place at Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5 or 7 p.m. on the day of their show. Tickets: $15 = per program; All Access Festival Pass = $100.

For more info go here: https://2022newjerseyinternationalfilmfestival.eventive.org/