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When you present this film to Western audiences, what do you want them to know?

Chung: Normally I just tell people not to expect the traditional Hollywood type film. I often introduce it with a warning about the 7-minute shot of the poem being recited in the middle of the film. It's my favorite shot in the film because we're forced to listen to a character we're unfamiliar with recite a poem he actually wrote, in his native tongue. It was very moving to me to watch that, because it's just so rare that we give people like that the chance to express themselves in such a direct way.

That scene, and the film at large, struck me as very observational. Nothing felt very forced.

Chung: I wanted to do that, but not in the way documentaries do it where you're just highlighting suffering or problems. I wanted to highlight communities and what they go through on an everyday level—their hopes, concerns, and everyday moments. 

The two friends walk down the road

The materiality of the film—earth, dirt, mud, water—plays a big role. The extended scene of the two boys just throwing mud at the wall, for example, stuck with me.

Chung: I knew that later in the film I wanted to have a scene where it rains on Ngabo as he comes to a realization, and I wanted to emphasize that as he goes deeper into the countryside, he gets more and more into the earth. I felt like it wasn't too difficult to come to that conclusion. Everywhere you go, houses are made out of mud. The principle action of most people in the countryside is not farming, it's what they call "digging." They're very much dependent upon and in harmony with the land.

Are there any filmmakers or film theorists who particularly inspired you?

Chung: I think for this film, Ozu was probably the biggest influence—in the sense that the drama is played out in the everyday and the ordinary. And Bresson is someone I also really admire, and recently the Dardenne brothers. Someone recently told me they thought the Dardennes were the biggest influence on this film, and I think that might be the case. I do love their films and I think they have a very similar, observational approach.

Your father was a Korean immigrant, and you grew up in Arkansas. Were you raised Christian?  

Chung: Yeah, we were raised Christian, and I think my dad's generation was the first generation of Christians in our family, thanks to missionaries in Korea. My parents used to work on Sundays because they worked in the chicken industry, along with a lot of Koreans in the neighborhood, so the Koreans would meet together on Saturdays for church. It was a Methodist church, and then on Sundays while my parents worked, they dropped me off at the local Southern Baptist church so I'd have something to do. So I have this weird mix of church traditions.

Where do you attend church now?

Chung: New Life Fellowship here in New York.

How has your faith influenced how you think about art?

Chung: I don't think of myself as having the type of Christian faith where I hear a lot from God and there's just so much I want to say. Bonhoeffer discusses the idea of the "dark night of the soul," and I can certainly relate to this. When I'm making films, I really draw from this idea—what Bonhoeffer references, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Cinema feels like a medium in which I'm wrestling with that. I want to explore how this plays out in various communities' lives. It's not a medium in which I want to evangelize or to be didactic.

You definitely get the suffering side in the film. But it's also hope-filled, especially in the whole context of Africa, which we always associate with suffering and pain. Was the Christian idea of resurrection and renewal important for you in this film?

Chung: I tend toward despair and sadness when I think about the world, so in a way I wanted to make a film that was a type of prayer. I think hope is the right word for it, but I think hope is tied up in what we perceive to be the impossible. Hope is always tied up in sadness.

The DVD is now available through a subscription at Film Movement, and will be available to the public on October 6, 2009.

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