Scene 1: Cannelle, a human rights lawyer based in Berlin, is pursuing a case on war crimes in Yemen at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Scene 2: In Sardinia, Italy, STOP RWM activists continue their campaign against the illegal expansion of the German arms manufacturer RWM on the island and its arms exports. Scene 3: Jamal, a former civil servant in Yemen, arrives with his family in Jeju after fleeing the Houthi rebels. Linking Europe, the Middle East, and Korea, these three scenes, which evoke the opening of a large-scale political thriller, arouse both tension and curiosity. At their intersection lies the (forgotten) war in Yemen. ACROSS: Anatomy of the Forgotten War follows the ‘merchants of death’ who start wars to sell weapons. From Yemen to Palestine and Ukraine, Kim Ji, a filmmaker based in Germany, Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, and Germany, looks at the world’s tragedies from different angles with a cool-headed and clear-eyed camera. In the final scene, Donald Trump openly exposes the ugly reality of the war business on social media, rendering the documentary’s efforts almost futile. Yet Kim Ji’s capable camera goes wherever it is needed. This documentary takes contemporary Korean documentary cinema to a whole new level.
