A film by Yun Suh - City of Borders

The concept for “City of Borders” began in 2002 while I was producing a series of radio reports in
Jerusalem and the West Bank on the clashes during the second Palestinian Intifada or uprising. I’m
drawn to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I intimately understand both sides of the war. Like the
Israelis, I grew up in constant fear of my neighboring country, North Korea, coming to attack my small
village and family in South Korea. I did not see North Koreans as humans but as demons determined
to kill me if they had the chance. My childhood playtime often involved devising escape routes and
places to hide in my home if North Koreans ever invaded. Like the Palestinians, I understand the
horror and hardships of living under occupation through my parents who survived the Japanese
colonization of Korea. Being on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, I witnessed the daily
devastating impact of the Israeli occupation.
Finding a bar where Israelis and Palestinians take great risks to meet and connect as human beings
amid all the distrust, death and violence renewed my faith in our shared humanity. Sa’ar Netanel’s
vision for his bar where people from different worlds can find common ground and be accepted,
mirrors my purpose for making films. Therefore, I chose this story as the topic of my first featurelength
film despite daunting barriers of budget, bombs, language and culture,.
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/WRITER/CINEMATOGRAPHER’S BIO
Yun Suh’s love of visual storytelling sparked at age 8 when she immigrated to Connecticut from South
Korea without knowing a word of English. Television and movies became her most important
classroom where she learned the language and the American culture. But without role models, she
didn’t think being a filmmaker was a career possibility. She studied to become a doctor to fulfill her
mother’s dream and kept her passion for film hidden. Her life took a big turn when her mother died
during her last year of college. Believing that her mother’s death was caused by her inability to fully
express herself, Suh devoted her life to true communication and self-expression.
After earning a biology degree from University of California, Berkeley, Suh landed jobs in radio and
broadcast television news, where she worked the past eight years, and produced documentary shorts in
her spare time. She has extensively covered news on the Middle East and has reported from Israel,
West Bank and Gaza Strip. Her nominations include Best Radio Documentary from the National
Federation of Community Broadcasters for her one-hour long radio report, Sabra & Shatilla (2003), on
the survivors of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps. She has also received a
local Emmy nomination for producing a news feature, Comfort Women (2001), a story of an illiterate
Korean woman who uses her paintings to break her 50-year silence about being forced into sexual
slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. In 2002, she earned the Support,
Training and Access for New Directors (STAND) grant from the Film Arts Foundation to pursue her
lifelong dream of being a filmmaker.
FILMMAKING TEAM
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