Actually, Adieu My Love   |   Drama  
Directed by: Minji Kang
2008  |   1h 47m   |   USA  |   www.minjikang.com

'Actually, Adieu My Love' depicts the stories of three young women from different backgrounds intersect. Ana, Olivia and Sally, all desire to regain reconnection to something in their life. The depictions of the three women represent one unified being in different points of life. This film deals with social problems young women face that are recognized universally.  * Note: language and sexual content

Screening Times:  Whitaker Auditorium  
Wednesday 7:15 pm / Saturday 2:45

About the Director:   Minji Kang was born in September 1984, South Korea. When she was fifteen, she moved to the United States by herself to study music and to become an artist. She has been playing the violin from the age of 4, and involving in Art from her young age as a painter. Later she found her ambition to study film.   She performed in Massachusetts All State Orchestra (in 2001 and 2003 MMEA) at Boston Symphony Hall. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006-2008), and trained as a visual artist and filmmaker.   She hopes to aspire to be a talented director and makes artistic films. She listens very carefully to the instincts of her unique voice. She follows her intimate desire to share stories. Her long-term goal as a director is to become an effective communicator who insightfully interprets and visualizes the hidden stories of human experience, and connects them to outside world. 

Director's Autobiographical Essay:   I am a storyteller, and this is my story. My name is Minji Kang, an adventuresome, Korean woman filmmaker.    I was born on Sep 8th 1984, in South Korea. I grew up and spent most of my childhood there. When I was fifteen, I came to America by myself to experience a bigger world and to follow my education.  People often ask me when I started to learn English, assuming that Korean is my first language. Perhaps, it is true that Korean is my fist language, but music is the first language that I learned how to read. When I was four years old, I was given a violin, my new best friend, by my older sister and mother. It is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life. Ever since then, I have learned how to read music, how to express my emotions with different pitches, and how to make my own music from the same piece: From a young age, I tried to find my own unique voice.      I have experienced provocative visual images through music. I don’t remember when it was specifically, but I started to develop characters by interpreting the music from the page into visual scenes. Since then, characters express their emotions in the secret, imaginary theater in my head. If the music is a sorrowful moderato sonata in pianissimo, the scene of a woman, abandoned, sorrowfully waiting her lover's return, appears. If the music is an allegro concerto in fortissimo, Joan of Arc and Great Alexander’s grand battle scene is depicted in my theater. Everyone wondered how I played the music so well, and I never told anyone that it is not I, but my wonderful characters playing their dramatic scenes in their own concert hall. Nobody ever knew about my visions or the stories that I witnessed while I was playing the music; the characters expressing their emotions through the sounds that I alone was creating. I was not only a violinist and a performer but also an interpreter and storyteller. I found myself in all of them. Music and my imaginary theater became, not only the main creative influence and motif of my story telling, but also an inspiration to express my flashing desires in everyday life.  From a young age, this incredible experience made me passionate for life, and caused me to look around at the environment with fresh eyes.      My secret experience stimulated my intimate fascination to make films. I no longer wanted to hide my art world inside me, and wanted to share my experiences and stories with others. At first, before I knew how to make films, I started painting in order to express the imagery and distinctive feelings, visually. In my late teens, I probably spent most of my time painting and drawing. But sadly the painted images on canvas were not moving. They were in the frames of the canvas as if I had locked them into hard concrete cells. I was able to share my images with others but now my characters were frozen. I needed to find a different way to express my stories, and that’s when I decided to make a film; an art of moving images and a wild imagination. I felt that I had found the home of comfort and freedom of expression. Since then, I have expressed many of my visual images on the screen.      Many elements of filmmaking attract me; especially the aesthetics of directing and the role of the director. To me, having strong visions for a story, visualizing them cinematically and looking over creative aspects of a film is, in some ways, comparable to giving birth and kindly guiding the newborn. That sense of creation and caring allures me. I also like to compare being a film director to being an orchestra conductor. In order to conduct and lead various musicians, the conductor must know how to play and read music.  And in order to direct actors, a director should know acting, and understand what stages the actors must go through, in order to express the personality of the characters. I, as a director, try to put myself in their shoes, and not only help them to interpret the characters as I see them, but also challenge them to transcend the characters’ personalities and states of being to higher meanings. I allow them to transform themselves. Then, I see magic happen and let it be.      Another attraction to being a director is that filmmaking is not a lonely work of solitary, noble writing or the act of practicing music alone, but a collaborative endeavor. It is a combination of arts and crafts. Therefore, the collaboration becomes more important than in any other art medium. I strongly value the importance of communication and preparation in filmmaking. I believe film directors should communicate with everyone on the set and oversee various aspects of the film as if he or she has a 360-degree point of view. I welcome anyone’s suggestions and contributions, and I listen to other key members whom I share similar passions with. Then, I take their ideas into consideration and attempt to mesh them with my own. I trust the ability and talent of people whom I work with. I communicate what my visions are as we congregate on the same proverbial page. They often surprise me with a great joy. Many people are involved in the process, and the imagination becomes something other than just a simple story. It becomes a powerful force that could even change someone’s life. It has certainly changed my life.      Everyday I am learning. I learn from people around me and from my own films. Filmmaking has been a great way to speak to myself. I have worked within reconstruction of memory, imaginative dreams and art, and my distinct perspective of daily life. I often observe women’s emotional changes and experiences. I attempt to reconstruct into story, their struggles and triumphs as I interpret them though my own eyes. I listen very carefully to the instincts of my unique voice. I follow my intimate desire to share my stories. I hope that my work could, quite possibly, change one’s life. Now, I am reaching out to many more unique life stories that need to be discovered and told. My long-term goal as a director is to become an effective communicator who insightfully interprets and visualizes the hidden stories of human experience, and connects them to the outside world. This is my way of opening up and attempting to inspire conversation in society.
    I gained a well-grounded knowledge of filmmaking after directing my first feature film.  It took almost a year and a half to complete. This fascinating and adventurous endeavor brought me an ambitious goal to explore more varied directing styles; to uncover new and unconventional ways of visualizing dramatic stories into cinematic form. I am dedicated to visual story telling. It is what I am most passionate about. I will hold strongly my confidence and ambition. I never want to stop telling stories. This is the life I have chosen and the person who I want to be. I aim high and follow my heart.
 “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.   Live the life you have imagined.”  - Henry David Thoreau