Bori

Bori (Kim Ah-song) lives with her happy family in a small coastal town in South Korea. The 11-year-old girl is right in the thick of things—and yet somehow lonely: Bori’s parents and her younger brother are all deaf. So it’s often up to Bori, who can hear, to interpret when sign language isn’t enough. Or to take over the conversations entirely, for example, on the phone or when dealing with government agencies. Bori is immensely important, is lovingly cared for, and yet feels excluded. She’d rather be like the rest of her family—deaf—and not always responsible for communicating with the outside world. A TV report about an older scuba diver who lost her hearing due to long periods underwater sparks a plan in Bori’s mind. But even that plan isn’t exactly “sensible” in the truest sense of the word... Kinderfilmwelt writes: “Can you imagine Bori pretending she can’t hear anymore after a swimming accident? Everyone is all worked up and worried. But Bori finds the experiment exciting, because through it she learns a lot about the people in her small town. [...] Director Jinyu Kim uses the film to share his own experiences with his deaf mother. It’s a story unlike any seen before, and through beautiful, bright summer imagery, it brings Bori’s loud world—and then her silent world—to life in a very intimate way.”