“JTBC received the Reporter of the Month award, while the film director was indicted”
Filmmakers including Park Chan-wook and Kim Sung-soo submitted a petition for director Jeong Yoon-seok (44), who was indicted for documenting the riot at the Seoul West District Court.
On the 16th, nine organizations including the Korean Independent Film Association, the Korean Film Producers Association, the Korean Film Directors Association, the Korean Art Cinema Association, the National Film Industry Labor Union, the Women Filmmakers Association, the Korean Video Media Education Association, and the Local Film Network released a statement titled ‘Artists with Cameras Become Rioters: A Petition for the Acquittal of Director Jeong Yoon-seok signed by 2,781 filmmakers including Park Chan-wook and Kim Sung-soo and 51 organizations.’
Previously, director Jeong Yoon-seok, who has directed numerous documentaries such as ‘Nonfiction Diary’, ‘Dust’, ‘Night Island Pirates: Seoul on Fire’, ‘Eyebrow’, ‘Persona: Sulli’, and ‘To Truth’, was arrested and indicted by the prosecution after entering the scene to cover the riot at the Seoul West District Court on January 19. The prosecution applied the charge of special building trespass against director Jeong and indicted him without detention. The second trial for director Jeong is scheduled to take place on the 16th at the Seoul West District Court.
In response, filmmakers stated, “We write this petition to emphasize that this case is a significant issue surrounding the ethics of documentation and freedom of expression, not merely illegal trespassing.”
They continued, “Director Jeong was a person filming the rioters that day, not a rioter himself. He was engaged in video documentation for his documentary work. The JTBC reporting team received the Reporter of the Month award for that footage. In contrast, director Jeong was indicted. What does this gap signify?”
They expressed, “The artist's lens is a tool for testimony, not for perpetration,” and emphasized, “Director Jeong has maintained the position that he was making the minimal resistance to stop the violence at the scene.”
They asserted, “As an artist with a camera, director Jeong has consistently lived a life confronting the darkness of society. This incident is not the first time he has stood at the center of a social conflict.” Finally, they requested the court to “declare him not guilty so that the actions of artists recording the era and leaving the truth are not treated as crimes.”
Meanwhile, the Busan International Film Festival also recognized the seriousness of the current situation, stating, “As a documentary director and artist with the duty to record the national crisis of our time, he cannot be a member of the far-right forces that instigated this unprecedented unconstitutional violence.”
Earlier, when an arrest warrant was issued for former President Yoon Suk-yeol in January, a riot occurred at the West District Court due to his supporters. The police reported that 140 people were booked in connection with the West District Court riot, and 92 of them were detained.
[Ji Seung-hoon, Star Today Reporter]
