As the director and their friend, I accompany women confined and forced into marriage by the South Korean state as they file a lawsuit. I witness silence turn into testimony.
In 2024, twelve elderly survivors break sixty years of silence to sue the South Korean government. They seek justice for lives shattered by state-run detention centers set up in the name of “social purification.” As young girls, they were impoverished orphans and deemed “at risk”.
At the film’s core is Rosaria. She was detained as a teen and forced into a mass wedding before being released but ending up in the red-light district for decades. She leads the legal fight alongside Clara and Lucia. Their decades of silence end as they choose to speak out.
As the trial unfolds across three hearings, I accompany them not just as filmmaker but as driver and confidant; my car becomes a sanctuary of intimacy against the courtroom’s cold formality, where rising online hate speech reveals enduring stigma.
In the end, Rosaria reveals her face in this documentary, while Clara and Lucia choose AI face replacements. As Rosaria says, “There are still so many women hiding. If they see this film, I hope they might find the courage to come forward.”
