Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 6pm to 9pm
The City College of New York
259 Convent Avenue – Shepard Hall Rm 291
New York, NY 10031
Watch Video: https://vimeo.com/831077830
In CROSSINGS, a group of international women peacemakers set out on a risky journey across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, calling for an end to a 70-year war that has divided the Korean peninsula and its people. The groundbreaking mission of Women Cross DMZ is captured in an intimate cinema vérité style, framed with historic newsreels of the Korean War and punctuated with dramatic contemporary news coverage. The group included renowned activists Gloria Steinem and Christine Ahn, and several Nobel laureates. Veteran documentarian, Deann Borshay Liem, tells an exquisitely touching and crucial story that advocates for peace, as she followed the delegation.
In this time of European conflict and heightened tensions in Asia – CROSSINGS explores the one war that still has yet to end – the Korean War. Starting in 1950, the Korean War never resulted in a peace treaty. Four million died, and the two divided parts of the peninsula still bear so many residual impacts – families that remain separated, two sides heavily militarized, and U.S. forces still based in the South. This year, 2023, marks the 70th anniversary of the Armistice – an agreement to end the fighting, which was supposed to culminate in a peace treaty, but has yet to happen.
Join Third World Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at CCNY for a screening of CROSSINGS, and panel discussion with filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem, along with Christine Ahn, Executive director of WomenCrossDMZ, a member of the delegation Aiyoung Choi, producer Sarah Kim and other production members to learn about the making of the film and the effort to press for peaceful talks instead of sanctions and military threats.
Co-Sponsor
Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY
Author Bio
Deann Borshay Liem is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian known for films that explore war, memory, family and identity including her landmark adoption films First Person Plural, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee and Geographies of Kinship. Her work on the Korean War including Memory of Forgotten War, Crossings and the oral history project, Legacies of the Korean War, explores divided families and women’s role in peacemaking. She has served as Executive Producer, Producer, Executive in Charge and consultant on numerous films including The Apology, Mimi & Dona, Seeing Allred, Who Will Write Our History, Dorothea Lange: Grab A Hunk of Lightning, Ishi’s Return, The Eddy Zheng Story, Kelly Loves Tony, AKA Don Bonus and many others. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, California Humanities, Sundance Institute, Rockefeller Foundation and San Francisco Film Society. She is currently serving as Producer for the ITVS-supported film, Vivien's Wild Ride, and is directing a new documentary that looks at the intersections between US military occupation, Korean military brides, and transnational adoption.
Christine Ahn is the Founder and Executive Director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War and ensure women’s leadership in peace building. In 2015, she led 30 international women peacemakers across the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) from North Korea to South Korea. They walked with 10,000 Korean women on both sides of the DMZ and held women’s peace symposia in Pyongyang and Seoul. Ahn is the International Coordinator of the Korea Peace Now! transnational campaign, which Women Cross DMZ launched in 2019 with three other feminist peace organizations. She has addressed the United Nations, the US Congress, Canadian Parliament and the ROK National Human Rights Commission. Her op-eds have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, andshe is a regular contributor on MSNBC, Democracy Now!, and CNN. Christine is also the co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korea Peace Network, and has worked with prominent women’s organizations such as the Global Fund for Women and the Women of Color Resource Center. Christine serves on the board of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. She is the recipient of the 2020 US Peace Prize for her bold activism to end the Korean War, heal the wounds from the war, and women’s leadership in peacebuilding. Ahn has a master’s degree in International Policy from Georgetown University.
Susan S. Kim, M.D. is a rheumatology fellow at Hospital for Special Surgery. She has focused her research endeavors in understanding health disparities and chronic illness in the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) population. Her current project is examining the relationship between health-related quality of life and the concept of social capital, which is an expansive concept that includes facets such as sociability, social networks, trust and reciprocity, community and civic engagement, in SLE patients. Dr. Kim received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology at Williams College in Massachusetts, her medical degree from the New York Medical College, and completed her Internal Medicine residency at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Aiyoung Choi is passionate about creating change in the world through education and activism. She is dedicated to ending violence in any form, and building a more just and peaceful world.
Born in Korea during World War II, she grew up in Shanghai, Taiwan, and Japan, and came to the U.S. for college in Illinois. She subsequently moved to New York City which is now home. Originally a painter and sculptor, her interests shifted to teaching, publishing, human resource management and public relations, and after formal retirement has been working as a consultant to nonprofit organizations. She has served on numerous boards of directors, including the Coalition for Korean American Voters, Black & Korean Mediation Project, Korean American Family Service Center, Asian Americans for Equality, New York Women’s Foundation, Manhattan Country School, Union Theological Seminary, and Asian Women Giving Circle, among others.
In 2015 Aiyoung’s commitment to world peace took a big step forward when she joined 30 prominent international women peacebuilders to cross the demilitarized zone from North Korea to South Korea, calling for an end to the now 70-year Korean War, reunite separated families, and ensure women’s leadership in the peace process. She is currently Board Chair of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement led by women to avert war and press for diplomacy and a peace-first approach to end the Korean War with a formal peace agreement.
Aiyoung has received numerous awards for her vision, compassion, and leadership, and is a mentor to many, both young and old.
