The city transforms from red to gray. For some, the alleys lined with red-brick houses evoke warm memories, but as time passes, they crumble and fade away. In their place, gray-toned apartments rise, as if recalling memories of a first love that can never be relived. Living in a gray city, one mourns the fading warmth of those red-colored memories.
LANGUAGE : Korean COUNTRY : South Korea YEAR : 2024 SUBTITLES : English DURATION : 24m DIRECTOR / WRITER : Mingu Kang CINEMATOGRAPHY : Mingu Kang EDITING : Mingu Kang GREY (cast) : Sehyung Jeon RED (cast) : Jiyun Lee SPONSOR : Shiny Foundation
Director Statement : Under the name of redevelopment, the cityscape, once filled with people’s memories, gradually fades away. The red brick streets are demolished, replaced by gray apartment buildings, transforming the familiar into something new. Amidst this change, a young resident witnesses the vanishing of once-beloved places and feels a sense of loss, as if his own cherished memories are being erased. Through this perspective, the film captures not only the physical disappearance of the city but also the fading stories and emotions tied to it. It serves as both a record and a lament for what is being lost in the name of progress.
Bio : Kang Mingu is a Seoul-based filmmaker and media artist whose work drifts between film, performance, and the spectral edges of memory. Trained in visual aesthetics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, he approaches cinema as a site where personal histories, urban spaces, and the unseen layers of society converge. His feature Search Operation: The New Town Survivor (2021) received international acclaim, including the Feature Film Award at the Brno International Film Festival.
Kang’s films—Reset, Personality Counseling Center at 0 Avenue, and Performance No. 19190301—explore disappearance, trauma, and the fragile boundaries between reality and myth. His media art has been presented in solo and international exhibitions, and he was selected as a UNESCO City to City artist, expanding his practice to collaborative works in Europe.
Alongside filmmaking, Kang is the author of books on cinema, ghosts, and folklore, continuously weaving storytelling across disciplines and continents.
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
