Meeting (“SsookSsook” YouTube)
Ahn Kimdaeun: “If you happened to discover this channel by chance, please keep it a secret.” At a time when people will stop at almost nothing to get more views, the owner of the channel SookSook Yang Se-chan refuses fame. He even tells his viewers not to subscribe to his channel. He and his staff want people to subscribe once they release their first official episode. They’re still in the process of brainstorming ways to make better content. 
Ssook Ssook is a secret channel that Yang and the creators of DdeunDdeun opened in secret, and so far, they have uploaded 11 episodes of the “Meeting” series (as of June 21). They come up with at least five ideas per episode but only a handful make it to the next stage. Yang and co. who are affectionately nicknamed the “worry dolls” ruminate and worry over their ideas. They discuss over whether they might offend anyone, or if the public would identify with their content and before they know it, some episodes finish without getting much done. Every time this happens, Yang cries out with confidence: “Today’s meeting was a fail!” The way he spends moments of self-reflection then quickly looks for ways to improve things shows us his brainstorming chops from years of attending comedy show production meetings. Instead of compromising, he learns from his failures, then moves on to the next idea. And the whole team listens intently and respects one another through it all. This considerate way of holding meetings might just be the secret to having zero malicious comments on his videos which have upwards of 10K views. What the viewers who watch his videos after they get off work, school or on their days off look forward to aren’t perfectly concluded answers. They are seeking to root for the friendly answers that only their favorite “worry dolls” can come up with.

Typhoon Club
Jeong Seohui (Cinema Journalist): The long take in the late director Shinji Sōmai's (相米 慎二) 1985 film Typhoon Club seems to maintain the attitude of a headstrong master who refuses to blink at all to fully capture the ambiguous silhouette of youth in all its imperfections. Six students end up stranded in a rural village middle school because of a raging typhoon. The storm isn’t unwelcome, but they hope that a "huge typhoon" would sweep away their struggles with puberty and personal strife that are pushing the teens closer to the edge. Their homeroom teacher is an adult who they hope would never be like, and their unreciprocated love is hopeless. Their philosophical thoughts and sexual impulses are met with heavy rain which manifests almost like a disease. School uniforms, ethics, desks lined up in neat rows - none of this is a part of their grammar, and so they dance in the rain in their swimsuits and underwear. Their clothing is a nuisance. The school that the typhoon swept through becomes a space where humans who want a better life and humans who believe they will never have a better life are gathered. The inherent dynamic energy and raw violence becomes much more vibrant in the 4K remastered version of the film. The movie follows five days in the lives of the teenagers who willingly surrender to the storm but not to the linear flow of time through unpredictable non-linearity. The sun shines again. Everyone is the hero, yet nobody is. Death isn’t all that clean and life isn’t all that messy.

Kneecap - Fine Art
Kim Doheon (Music Critic): Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, DJ Próvaí are part of the three-person group from Belfast, North Ireland called Kneecap. They are shortlisted for the Album of the Year with their debut album entitled Fine Art. The young and poor people in the West of Northern Ireland have used drugs and alcohol to cure themselves of the harsh life while hedonistic parties were their means of forgetting division and embracing solidarity. The concept album tells the story of an incident that happened at an imaginary pub called The Rutz in 18 tracks. The group bombards the listeners with English and Irish rap accompanied by the rough beats of techno, house banger, dancehall, hip hop, and grim. It’s loud, dirty, and rough. And you can’t turn it off.
“They cut off our language. Language is a means for socializing and survival; it’s not even political.” Kneecap, who are Irish speakers that make up only 0.2% of the Northern Irish population are waving their green, white, and orange flag across the world from the Irish Language Act March in 2017 to the Bowery Club in New York. But Kneecap wants coexistence instead of political controversy and other forms of violence. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. We can be friends if our political views don’t align.” The story of this interesting group has been put on the big screen starring the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award: NEXT winner Michael Fassbender. This is the party music of the year that aims to break down all forms of poverty, sectarianism, hate, killings, and the system that aids and abets this all.

The 15th Anthology of Award-winning Young Authors 2024 (Munhakdongne)
Kim Boksung (Writer): Every year around this time, I pick up the annual Anthology of Award-Winning Young Authors. Released each spring, the collection is easy to spot at libraries or bookstores just as the world around us starts to warm up. Whenever I run my hand over any of these books’ covers, I always end up wondering what exactly the criteria for a “young author” is. Regardless, there’s no better volume if you’re looking to pick up on what’s trending in the world of Korean short stories and novellas and hunger for the latest stories these young writers are putting to page. Each year, the anthology features seven new pieces of writing, and among this year’s seven freshly penned, award-winning stories and their accompanying reviews printed in The 15th Anthology of Award-Winning Young Authors, the one that really caught my eye was “The World’s Going to End Anyway” by Gong Hyun-jin. Year after year, after ringing in the summer by signing up for and wrapping up a swimming lesson at my local community center, I find myself languishing under the blazingly hot sun, shaking out my wet hair as I drag myself home, and think, “Ugh, global warming! What’s the point of anything if the world’s going to end anyway …?” And if that doesn’t strike you as anything unusual, then this short story might be just the summer read you’re looking for.