LETTER TO MY CHILDREN Cuba 1951 “The heart of diaspora is pain.” LOGLINE It's 1905: 2-year old Lim Cheon Taek and his mother migrate from Korea to Mexico and then Cuba. Lim Cheon Taek yearns to go back to Korea but over his lifetime begins to reflect what homeland means to him – and what it might mean to his descendants. ABOUT THE FILM Director: Joseph Juhn Genre: Documentary Short Production Company: Diaspora Film Production, LLC Production Countries: Cuba, South Korea, USA Filming Locations: Cuba, South Korea, USA Languages: Spanish, Korean, English Subtitles: English Length: 15:00 min Port of Incheon, Korea, early 20th century. TECHNICAL DATA Picture Format: Color + B&W Aspect Ratio: 1.78 (16x9 Video) Shooting Format: HDV DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT “Letter to My Children” developed as an independent project from a feature- length documentary on Korean Cubans (Jeronimo, currently in production). We felt strongly that Lim Cheon Taek – who migrates to Mexico aged 2, moves to Cuba as a newly-wed sixteen years later, raises a family of nine children through poverty and discrimination as an ethnic minority and lives through historical moments like the Cuban Revolution and the Korean War, both from near and afar – deserved to have his story told in a short film of his own.” ∼ Joseph Juhn ∼ DIRECTOR Joseph Juhn CONTACT [email protected] JERONIMO +1.315-706-6734 Based in New York. FILMOGRAPHY ‘Letter to My Children’ (2018, documentary, 13 min) Jeronimo (in production, documentary, 90 min) BIO Joseph Juhn is a second-generation Korean American lawyer-turned-documentary filmmaker. A serendipitous backpacking trip to Cuba in 2015 changed Joseph's life when he ran into a Korean descendant by chance, inspiring him to rekindle his storytelling ambitions. Joseph studied for a BA in Film & Video at UC San Diego. His most notable student work, ‘Story of Daniel Matthews’, is a short about the identity crisis of a Korean adoptee into a Caucasian family in the US. Since then he made ‘Letter to My Children’ (2018), in which a Korean immigrant to Cuba reflects on what homeland means to him. Jeronimo (forthcoming), Joseph's first feature-length film, explores the life of Jerónimo Lim Kim, a Korean Cuban revolutionary, who, after a visit to Korea, re-explores his ethnic roots and vision for future generations of Korean descendants in Cuba. SYNOPSIS It’s the year 1905. Lured by a newspaper announcement, 1,033 Koreans endure an arduous voyage across the Pacific Ocean in search of a better life in Mexico. Among them are the 2-year old Lim Cheon Taek and his mother. The promised land never materializes as, upon arrival, the Korean migrants they find themselves sold off to farm owners as indentured laborers. When they are finally freed four years later, they are unable to return home as Japan has colonized Korea, leaving them stateless. Lim Cheon Taek, now 18, and his new wife journey onward to Cuba, where only more poverty and discrimination await them. He yearns to go back to Korea and supports its fight for independence from Japan from afar by collecting small amounts of funds. As time passes Lim Cheon Taek begins to reflect what homeland means to him and what it might mean to his children and Museum of Korea Migration History, Incheon, South Korea. grandchildren, who have never set foot in Korea. HOW KOREANS CAME TO CUBA Museum of Korea Migration History, Incheon, South Korea. In the early twentieth century a newspaper ad promised young Koreans lucrative work in Mexico. 1033 Koreans (mostly men, some women and children) followed the call, arriving in Yucatán in 1905 full of dreams for a better life – dreams that were soon shattered. The migrants found themselves working on fields of henequén, a fibrous plant from which ropes were made. Henequén was not easy for them to work with: it is a spiky plant, harvested under the tropical sun and with the pressure of reaching certain quotas in order to be able to support themselves and their families. The Koreans longed to return home, but after Japan colonized Korea in 1910, they were left stateless and unable to go back. Some years later, 288 of these Koreans decided to move on to Cuba, travelling there on the steamship Tamaulipas. After being stuck in quarantine for a month, they finally disembarked in the port of Manatí on March 25, 1921. Their hopes to work in the sugarcane industry did not pan out, as they had come during the low season. Most then sought their fortunes elsewhere, with many relocating to Matanzas. There, they again worked on fields of henequén. “Like the henequén plant has thorns, thorns were scattered on the path of all those that came to Cuba, and yet, they managed to survive.” Nelson Lim, Jerónimo’s son KEY CREW Joseph Juhn Director・Producer・Writer Marlies Gabriele Prinzl Co-producer・Co-Writer Jaesun Song National Cemetery, Daejeon, South Korea. Director of Photography Yan Vega Editor PRODUCTION STILLS JERONIMO The Untold Tales of A feature-length documentary Koreans in Cuba Dir. by Joseph Juhn Coming 2018 JERONIMO Support our film: https://www.goo.gl/A22E1x Follow our journey (FB・IG・TW): @jeronimomovie CONTACT [email protected] www.jeronimomovie.com © 2018 Diaspora Film Production, LLC. Photography by Marlies Gabriele Prinzl, the Lim Family and archives. Diaspora quote from interview with Rabbi Joshua Stanton. Design & text: Otherwhere..