MIL OSI Translation. Region: Italy –
Source: The Holy See in Italian
Friday, September 27, 2024
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – “Certain realities can only be seen with eyes cleansed by tears.” These words spoken by Pope Francis during the meeting with young Filipinos in Manila well represent the key to understanding the documentary film “Resurrection” which on Saturday 28 September 2024, at 11 am, will be screened in the Aula Pio XI of the Pontifical Lateran University to close the Korean Culture Week, an event organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to the Holy See to celebrate the day of the “Foundation of Korea” which is celebrated every year on 3 October. The feature film collects what is the spiritual legacy of Fr. John Lee Tae-seok, a Korean Salesian missionary who carried out his pastoral and professional activity (he was already qualified as a doctor when he became a Salesian, ed.) for almost a decade, from 2001 to 2009, in the community of Tonj, in today’s South Sudan. In Africa he devoted himself to such intense pastoral activity that he profoundly influenced the lives of the people he helped. Those people at the time were children or young people. Today they are adults and some, following his example, have wanted to follow in his footsteps, retracing his steps not only in their profession, but also in their training, some even studying medicine at his own university. And they are precisely them, students of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Busan, in South Korea, the protagonists of this film by director Goo Soo Hwan, the same director of the famous film also dedicated to Don Lee and entitled “Don’t cry for me, Sudan”, which was an extraordinary success in his homeland (it was also screened in the Vatican in December 2011). “Resurrection” can be defined as the sequel to “Don’t cry for me, Sudan”: the new cinematic work by Goo Soo Hwan, in fact, starts from the death of Don Lee, which occurred in 2010. Those who tell the story of those moments are his students, young people who fell into despair at the news of his passing. A desperation that did not last long: they soon realized that their task was to continue, albeit in different ways, his mission. Here lies the key to understanding the entire film: in South Sudanese culture, crying in public is a cause for embarrassment, but the students cannot hold back their tears when they think of their teacher. And by sharing the love he had given them, the tears soon give way to joy and today the gratitude towards Don Lee shines through in the gestures of his students. “Certain realities can only be seen with eyes cleansed of tears”. The director is keen to point out that the film is not just a story of the path that the missionary’s students have undertaken to become doctors: “They have become people who give: what matters here is how they are living their lives. And they are living exactly the life of their ‘father’. They have shown me what happiness is and what authority really is”. “I wanted to know if the students’ tears had changed them. Well, their lives have changed a lot!”, adds the director, known for his critical and harsh interventions, who has over 30 years of experience as an investigative journalist. (FB) (Agenzia Fides 27/9/2024)
The poster of the movie “Resurrection”
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.