RESIDUAL TRAUMA: THE ISLAND OF DOKDO – “Land of My Father” Documentary Screening & Discussion with Filmmaker Matthew Koshmrl

Sponsored by Department of Radio-Television-Film, Department of Asian Studies, and the Center for East Asian Studies.

Set in the unresolved trauma of the Japanese occupation of Korea, “Land of My Father” (아버지의 땅) is a story about two individuals who take on the establishment in an attempt to change accepted historical narratives. A Korean farmer protests the Japanese government in Tokyo for claiming the disputed island territory of Dokdo after finding out his father was abducted and enslaved in an iron mine during the Japanese occupation of Korea. A Korean woman who lived on Dokdo with her father struggles to keep his legacy alive after the Korean government mysteriously erased their history of being pioneering residents.

MATTHEW KOSHMRL, Director
Matthew Koshmrl (RTF MFA ’16) is a filmmaker, cinematographer, and professor based in the USA. He has been the cinematographer on documentary films that have played at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, DocumentaMadrid, and True/False Film Festival.

In 2016 he received the Antarctic Service Medal from the US congress when he was commissioned by the National Science Foundation to travel to the Antarctic Peninsula to make a documentary about paleontological expeditions and has a film playing at Carnegie Museum of Natural History about dinosaurs of Antarctica.

Matthew personally focuses on cinema-vérité documentary films that explore the evolution of tradition, individual and national identity, and unseen processes.

An extension of his MFA thesis at UT Austin, “Land of My Father” is Matthew’s feature documentary directorial debut. RTF BS alum Christina Sun Kim edited and produced, and MFA alum Juan Pablo González was the DP.

Residual Trauma: The Island of Dokdo
Film Trailer
Crew Bios