Dai Sil Kim-Gibson

Directing

Dai Sil Kim-Gibson

Place of birth

Sincheon, Hwanghae, Korea

Known for

Directing

Credits

16 titles

Dai Sil Kim-Gibson (born 1938) is a Korean–American documentary filmmaker and author. Her films and writing focus on humanizing "the voiceless" within issues of human rights, overlooked periods in history, and Asian-American diaspora.

Known for

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women poster
10.0

A powerful and emotional documentary about Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, Silence Broken dramatically combines the testimony of former comfort women who demand justice for the "crimes against humanity" committed against them, along with contravening interviews of Japanese soldiers, recruiters and contemporary scholars who deny the existence of comfort women or claim that these victims "did this for money." In the film, these women demand an official apology, admission of moral as well as legal guilt, and compenstion from the Japanese government. They want human dignity and justice restored to them. The individual testimonies in Silence Broken, combined with unusual archival footage and dramatized images, shatter the half-century of silence and create a collective story filled with soulful sorrow and amazing resilience of the human spirit.

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

2000

No artwork available
8.0

A powerful and emotional documentary about Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

—

People are the Sky poster
NR

A naturalized American citizen born in North Korea, this filmmaker interweaves two themes: search for home and ordinary people, while exploring how North Korea has reached the current state. The majority of the extant work on North Korea are based on interviews with 'defectors,' featuring its dark side and the three 'monsters,' Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un. Taking a journey into the past, she explores North Korea's history in relation to South Korea and the USA, and sees through her eyes the people who live there. Her life which spans the 20th and 21st centuries and the three countries guide her to tell stories of North Korea in political and historical context. A deeply personal film with new insight.

People are the Sky

2014

Motherland: Cuba, Korea, USA poster
NR

How do we decide where is home? Feeling increasingly isolated in her adopted homeland, accomplished documentarian Dai Sil Kim-Gibson travels to Cuba to unearth stories from a relatively unknown group in the Asian diaspora. On the island, she meets Martha, a woman of Korean descent who identifies herself as Cuban. Like many of her contemporary countrymen and women, Martha possesses family ties that span multiple nations, cultures and politics. Her story inspires Kim-Gibson to travel to Miami to meet Martha's émigré sister and the rest of their mulitcultural family, in a journey that reveals how very different worldviews can co-exist in one family separated by place and ideology.

Motherland: Cuba, Korea, USA

2006

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans poster
NR

A documentary presentation of the lives of 43,000 Koreans brought by the Japanese to Sakhalin for forced labor and abandoned there for 50 years.

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans

1995

Wet Sand: Voices from L.A. poster
NR

Filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson explores the aftermath of the 1992 LA Civil Unrest in her film WET SAND.

Wet Sand: Voices from L.A.

2004

Film credits

Behind the camera

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women poster
10.0

A powerful and emotional documentary about Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, Silence Broken dramatically combines the testimony of former comfort women who demand justice for the "crimes against humanity" committed against them, along with contravening interviews of Japanese soldiers, recruiters and contemporary scholars who deny the existence of comfort women or claim that these victims "did this for money." In the film, these women demand an official apology, admission of moral as well as legal guilt, and compenstion from the Japanese government. They want human dignity and justice restored to them. The individual testimonies in Silence Broken, combined with unusual archival footage and dramatized images, shatter the half-century of silence and create a collective story filled with soulful sorrow and amazing resilience of the human spirit.

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

2000

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women poster
10.0

A powerful and emotional documentary about Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, Silence Broken dramatically combines the testimony of former comfort women who demand justice for the "crimes against humanity" committed against them, along with contravening interviews of Japanese soldiers, recruiters and contemporary scholars who deny the existence of comfort women or claim that these victims "did this for money." In the film, these women demand an official apology, admission of moral as well as legal guilt, and compenstion from the Japanese government. They want human dignity and justice restored to them. The individual testimonies in Silence Broken, combined with unusual archival footage and dramatized images, shatter the half-century of silence and create a collective story filled with soulful sorrow and amazing resilience of the human spirit.

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

2000

No artwork available
8.0

A powerful and emotional documentary about Korean women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

—

People are the Sky poster
NR

A naturalized American citizen born in North Korea, this filmmaker interweaves two themes: search for home and ordinary people, while exploring how North Korea has reached the current state. The majority of the extant work on North Korea are based on interviews with 'defectors,' featuring its dark side and the three 'monsters,' Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un. Taking a journey into the past, she explores North Korea's history in relation to South Korea and the USA, and sees through her eyes the people who live there. Her life which spans the 20th and 21st centuries and the three countries guide her to tell stories of North Korea in political and historical context. A deeply personal film with new insight.

People are the Sky

2014

People are the Sky poster
NR

A naturalized American citizen born in North Korea, this filmmaker interweaves two themes: search for home and ordinary people, while exploring how North Korea has reached the current state. The majority of the extant work on North Korea are based on interviews with 'defectors,' featuring its dark side and the three 'monsters,' Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un. Taking a journey into the past, she explores North Korea's history in relation to South Korea and the USA, and sees through her eyes the people who live there. Her life which spans the 20th and 21st centuries and the three countries guide her to tell stories of North Korea in political and historical context. A deeply personal film with new insight.

People are the Sky

2014

Motherland: Cuba, Korea, USA poster
NR

How do we decide where is home? Feeling increasingly isolated in her adopted homeland, accomplished documentarian Dai Sil Kim-Gibson travels to Cuba to unearth stories from a relatively unknown group in the Asian diaspora. On the island, she meets Martha, a woman of Korean descent who identifies herself as Cuban. Like many of her contemporary countrymen and women, Martha possesses family ties that span multiple nations, cultures and politics. Her story inspires Kim-Gibson to travel to Miami to meet Martha's émigré sister and the rest of their mulitcultural family, in a journey that reveals how very different worldviews can co-exist in one family separated by place and ideology.

Motherland: Cuba, Korea, USA

2006

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans poster
NR

A documentary presentation of the lives of 43,000 Koreans brought by the Japanese to Sakhalin for forced labor and abandoned there for 50 years.

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans

1995

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans poster
NR

A documentary presentation of the lives of 43,000 Koreans brought by the Japanese to Sakhalin for forced labor and abandoned there for 50 years.

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans

1995

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans poster
NR

A documentary presentation of the lives of 43,000 Koreans brought by the Japanese to Sakhalin for forced labor and abandoned there for 50 years.

A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans

1995

Wet Sand: Voices from L.A. poster
NR

Filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson explores the aftermath of the 1992 LA Civil Unrest in her film WET SAND.

Wet Sand: Voices from L.A.

2004

Sa-I-Gu poster
NR

Sa-I-Gu, literally translated in Korean as April 29, is the day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots or uprising. Three months after the events, the documentary explores the experience of several Korean American women who were caught in the events.

Sa-I-Gu

1993

America Becoming poster
10.0

Looks at the United States as it becomes an increasingly diverse nation. Tracing the history of significant changes in the Immigration and Nationality Act beginning in 1965, this program introduces a dramatic vision of a multi-cultural America where people of color are the new majority. The feelings and stories of ordinary people are featured in everyday context in six cities across the county. Interviews with residents of Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and several other places probe the changing relationships between newcomers and established residents.

America Becoming

1991

America Becoming poster
10.0

Looks at the United States as it becomes an increasingly diverse nation. Tracing the history of significant changes in the Immigration and Nationality Act beginning in 1965, this program introduces a dramatic vision of a multi-cultural America where people of color are the new majority. The feelings and stories of ordinary people are featured in everyday context in six cities across the county. Interviews with residents of Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and several other places probe the changing relationships between newcomers and established residents.

America Becoming

1991

America Becoming poster
10.0

Looks at the United States as it becomes an increasingly diverse nation. Tracing the history of significant changes in the Immigration and Nationality Act beginning in 1965, this program introduces a dramatic vision of a multi-cultural America where people of color are the new majority. The feelings and stories of ordinary people are featured in everyday context in six cities across the county. Interviews with residents of Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and several other places probe the changing relationships between newcomers and established residents.

America Becoming

1991

No artwork available
7.0

A Little League baseball game becomes the unlikely context for this lyrical drama about memory and loss, told from the perspective of a Korean-American woman and her grandmother.

Olivia's Story

2000