The Nam Center for Korean Studies' one-hour documentary The Unreliable People made its national debut in October 2006 at the Sackler Gallery at the Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institute. Professor Meredith Jung-En Woo, the film's producer, along with Professor Y. David Chung created the documentary as the first in a series of projects to be added to the Archives of Diasporic Korea.
The documentary tells the story of some 200,000 Koreans whom Stalin deported from the Soviet Far East to Kazakhstan in the 1930s. By looking at the lives and the histories of Koreans in modern Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, viewers will come away with a greater understanding of what it means to be part of an ethnic cleansing and, subsequently, a diasporic community.
The documentary was produced from more than one hundred hours of interviews with Korean-Kazaks, historical footage, and photography of contemporary Central Asia. Featured are the areas of Almaty and Ushtobe where thousands of Koreans established a town. Visit the official Koryo Saram website to find more information about the film.
