5 Must-See Films Celebrating Disability Awareness at Suwon Media Center’s Special Screening

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Around 2 p.m. on the 15th, the screening room at the Suwon City Media Center dimmed. Josee tentatively steps into a world she fears yet wants to explore. The film’s protagonist is introduced as a person with a disability who relies on her grandmother—and later her boyfriend, Tsuneo—to leave the house. As she goes through love and loss like many young people and begins to venture out on her own, the audience starts to see her not as a label but simply as Josee.

When the lights came up after the screening, a quiet afterglow lingered. Viewers exchanged looks and lingered on the film’s messages about connection. Rather than treating disability solely as something to be sheltered, the film presents it as part of the life of ordinary—and at the same time distinctive—neighbors living alongside people without disabilities. That perspective left the audience with a tone that was both serious and warm.

To mark Disability Day on the 20th, the Suwon City Media Center assembled a series of special screenings designed to foster conversation between people with and without disabilities and to chip away at prejudice. The program moves beyond a paternalistic or charitable gaze and focuses on films that convey everyday lessons about inclusion.

The lineup features emotionally resonant titles including The Straight Story, All About Love, The Sound of Shining Applause, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Rather than prioritizing only recent releases, the center revived well-regarded works to illuminate the lives of people with disabilities from multiple perspectives.

The most notable event is a screening of I Am Bori that will include a post-screening Q&A. Actors Kwak Jin-seok and Heo Ji-na, who gave powerful performances portraying people with disabilities in the film, will be on hand to share firsthand accounts with the audience on the evening of the 24th at 7 p.m.

The discussion will be moderated by Hwang Su-sanna, a film instructor at Suwon Saebit School for Students with Disabilities who has guided entries to the Paral Smartphone Disability Film Festival. She plans to lead an in-depth conversation about the film’s social significance and media education for people with disabilities.

On the 29th, the center will roll out Gachibom Cinema as a regular series under a new agreement with the Barrier-Free Film Committee. Gachibom Cinema—whose name conveys that “watching together has value”—offers services such as audio description and Korean subtitles so viewers with visual or hearing impairments can enjoy films together.

After a pilot run in March, the center now presents Gachibom Cinema on the last Wednesday of every month. This month’s selection is CODA.

The center also runs a variety of other programs, including SAC ON SCREEN, which will feature a live Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra concert recording; a Cine‑Brunch screening of Lee Myung-se’s My Love, My Bride; and an independent art-house program showing titles such as Yeonji-gu: The Original 4K and Paris, Texas.

Bang Seo-hyun, community media team leader at the Suwon City Media Center and the organizer of the special series, said, “We curated this program because we want people to move beyond viewing disability as something to be overcome or as a condition that only invites pity. I hope attendees will respect and empathize with each other’s lives instead of dividing people into ‘disabled’ and ‘non-disabled.'”

/Reporter Ji-hye Park pjh@incheonilbo.com