*This article contains spoilers for the film Minari.

Minari was released in Korea on the third of the month and has become one of the most talked about movies in the world. It has received 72 awards from film festivals and ceremonies across the world including the Golden Globes and Sundance (as of March 11). Press worldwide, including The New York Times, highlighted the nomination of Minari for no less than six categories including for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled to be held this April. Just as the edible herb minari, so familiar to Koreans, now shares its name with a universally lauded film, the movie tells the often untold yet familiar story of an immigrant family. Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Han Ye-ri) move from Korea to the United States, then out of downtown California and into the wilderness of Arkansas. As the dual-income couple face increasing difficulty taking care of Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and David (Alan S. Kim), they decide to have Monica’s mother, Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung), come to the States as well to live all together. The film shows people carving out a life for themselves in their own way, in their own place, for the sake of a better future. The characters laugh, cry, push back and create hurt, but in the end they embrace one another and endure each overwhelming day as they come; they ceaselessly endeavor to make each day a little happier than the last. All the days spent this way become a root for the mind to keep it from being whipped away by life’s stormy turns—a root that also acts as one part of their story of building a community. But the plot of Minari is only the start of the story behind the movie.

Although filmed in the US by an American director in collaboration with an American production company, and portraying the lives of US citizens, Minari was classified as a foreign language film at the Golden Globes in December, owing to guidelines which categorize movies where English is spoken in less than 50% of the dialogue as foreign language films; the decision sparked condemnation from within the industry. In a tweet, actor Daniel Dae Kim called the move “the film equivalent of being told to go back to your country when that country is actually America.” Franklin Leonard, a film executive, said, “Let us not forget that Inglourious Basterds was mostly not in English and was not classified the same way,” while director and producer Phil Lord tweeted, “The thing is, on Minari and the Globes, this isn’t an oversight. It’s a choice.” Lord also argued that “this is a carefully considered, deliberate, harmful decision.”

Minari proves that not only is discrimination an ongoing problem, but that there are people who are striving for that to change. The criticisms over Minari’s classification as a foreign language film that prevented it from being nominated for Best Motion Picture prompted questions about the deep-seated problems and wrongful practices of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts and judges the Golden Globes. The HFPA finally issued a statement on March 7, saying they intend “to increase transparency in [their] organization and build a more inclusive community,” and promised to review internal policies and membership eligibility, as well as make anti-racism and sexual harassment education mandatory. In an interview with film magazine Cine21, Minari director Lee Isaac Chung explained, “I believe films can go beyond simply telling stories about a nation, and talk about the human qualities that we all share.” Boundaries like language and nationality do not apply to movies that speak to both personal and universal human experiences. The story that unfolded inside and around the film proved this much—that no experience is had in isolation, and that we must rather consider the life we live together.

TRIVIA

Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
A separate best-picture category at the Golden Globe Awards for films with less than half their dialogue in English. The name was changed from Best Foreign Film in 1987, after which non-American, English-dominant films, including those from the UK, were excluded from the category and nominated on the Best Picture ticket instead. Meanwhile, the Academy Awards, overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, presented an award for Best Foreign Language Film from 1945, but renamed the category to Best International Feature Film last year. Feature-length films produced outside the US and which feature mainly non-English dialogue are eligible, but can still be nominated for major awards like Best Picture at the same time.