Films are fantasy. The audience travels to the imaginary world created by the filmmaker. This also applies to the documentary genre. Although it is said that it captured reality, the subjective world of the maker exists in the filming and editing process. However, in documentaries, the future can not be captured and records real people, not actors, so creating a fantasy in a documentary is not easy. 

When it comes to fictional films, I am particularly fond of science fiction. In particular, I prefer stories that take place in a future that has yet to be experienced. My taste like this is reflected in the planning of Girl who dreams about time. In 2015, I met a young woman with special powers that ordinary people do not possess—that they could not possess even if they wanted to. A Gangsinmu, a type of shaman possessed by spirits, Sujin dreams the night before about the people who visit her to have their fortunes told. When she first meets them, she already possesses some information about these total strangers through that dream. She said even indications of their coming times are shown through dreams. Having finished the film in 2022,  I wonder if maybe I wanted to make a Sci-Fi movie through Sujin's story, breaking away from the limitations of documentaries that can't capture the future in advance.

Last January, the film was released in theaters and met with domestic audiences. As a director, I always look forward to and enjoy the conversations with the audience, where they share their assessments and questions after viewing the film. Each time, I have been asked the same question: what is the meaning of the title Girl who dreams about time? Literally, Sujin dreams about the future every night. Through her dreams, she learns not only about her customers but also about herself. The first meaning is that it is about a girl with a unique power. And as I made the film, it gained more critical sense: the idea that just because a person has chosen or accepted their destiny, their hopes and expectations for the times to come do not go away. Sujin accepted her destiny as a shaman, and she lives dreaming of something even at this moment. Whatever those may be, they have to do with an unknown time that she has yet to experience. I am no different from her. I make choices every moment and sometimes regret my decisions, but I always dream… If my life is a documentary, then I am the protagonist. PARK Hyuckjee

With or Without You (2015), Oh! My PaPa (2016), Speed of Happiness (2020)

Choice of Chosen or Choice of Selected One
The girl was chosen by the spirits before she even knew about the world around her. She dreams on behalf of people who seek to peer into the divine domain of the future—but she has also had to bear on her lonesome through many moments of confusion, caught between her ordinary life and her destiny as a representative of the spirits. Selected for the JEONJU Cinema Project 2022, director Park Hyuckjee’s Girl who dreams about time is a documentary about the life of Kwon Sujin, a 26-year-old woman standing at the crossroads between the life that the spirits foretold for her and the dreams she has chosen for herself. Sujin’s mystical gifts were first in evidence when she was four years old; today, she is a shaman. Since entering university, she has spent her weekdays as a college student with aspirations of becoming an advertising planner—and her weekends reading fortunes at a shrine in the mountains where her grandmother waits.

The situation is inherently an unsustainable one, and the physical and emotional demands have been so intense that the documentary’s filming was halted for three years at Sujin’s request. If that time is included, the documentary examines around seven years of her life. While it may seem meditative at first glance, it is deeply moving to observe the process of a young 26-year-old woman living her life, making choices, and growing over the course of a journey that would be difficult for anyone to accept—filmed in a way that is sometimes plaintive and other times deeply supportive. Sujin is seen from behind, huddled over and taking short steps in the shrine and the isolated, freezing house in the mountains. Once time has passed and she has arrived at her choice, the camera suddenly circles around her—seen again from behind at a beach on a summer day—and her face fills the screen. It is the face of someone bold enough to live the destiny she chose for herself rather than one the spirits conferred on her. It is the director’s message of hope and support that other choices and dreams remain possible. MO Eun Young

Production Hiharbor Pictures (oojooejoo@gmail.com)
Distribution Hiharbor Pictures (oojooejoo@gmail.com), JINJIN Pictures (jinjinpic@gmail.com)
International Sales M-Line Distribution (sales@mline-distribution.com)

2022 IDFA Competition for Feature Length Documentary (Nominee)

2023 One World Festival Best Film Award (International Competition, Nominee)