< Logline >
While her friend Feruza was living through the Tigray War in Ethiopia, Korean animator and filmmaker Yeyoung was in Seoul when their nearly daily messages suddenly stopped, leaving a year of silence between them. Traveling to Ethiopia to find Feruza, Yeyoung confronts not only her friend’s silence, but also the story she had long believed about their relationship—what love, responsibility, and “knowing” someone truly mean. Told as a hybrid documentary combining 70–80% animation with 20–30% live action, Finding Feruza explores friendship, war, and the limits of seeing another person through one’s own gaze.
<Film Summary>
*Finding Feruza* follows the ten-year friendship between Yeyoung Kim, a Korean animation director, and Feruza, a woman from northern Ethiopia whom Yeyoung first met in 2014 while traveling through a remote desert village. At the time, Yeyoung was burned out and questioning how to live as an artist; Feruza was sixteen, facing pressure to marry, but full of humor, intelligence, and dreams. Their brief encounter became a life-changing journey for both women, and Yeyoung later made a short documentary about Feruza that introduced her story to Korean audiences. After visiting Korea and receiving opportunities to study there, Feruza chose instead to return to Ethiopia and build a life on her own terms.
For years, the two women stayed connected through near-daily messages, sharing questions about identity, work, family, and how to live. When the Tigray War began, Feruza told Yeyoung that her region was safe and that she was fine. After the war, they began discussing a feature documentary based on their ten years of friendship. Feruza said she wanted to tell audiences that everyone had worked hard simply to live. Soon after the project received production support in Korea, Feruza called Yeyoung and said, “Something bad happened.” Then she disappeared.
As months of silence stretch into nearly a year, Yeyoung is caught between fear for her friend and the responsibility of a film already underway. Looking back through ten years of messages and the timeline of the war, she begins to question not only what happened to Feruza, but also how much she had projected onto her: the brilliant girl, the survivor, the friend she believed she understood. When Yeyoung finally reconnects with Feruza and says she wants to come to Ethiopia, Feruza asks, “Are you coming to film a documentary?”
The question changes the film. Yeyoung must confront whether she is searching for her friend, or for the story she has built around her. Through long phone calls, the two women begin to rebuild trust, and Feruza agrees to meet in person. In Ethiopia, Yeyoung finds a woman changed by war, trauma, marriage, and survival—but still choosing life on her own terms. Told through a hybrid form of animation and live action, *Finding Feruza* follows a reunion that is not simply about finding a missing friend, but about learning how to see another person beyond the image we have made of them.
The film’s final shape remains open as Yeyoung and Feruza continue to work through the archive and their relationship. What guides the film now is whether this can become a shared story rather than one person’s gaze, and whether animation can hold the distance, memory, and silences between two people who love each other but may never fully understand one another.
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[ Password : feruza ]
<Recognition>
The Whickers Top 15 (selected from 550+ submissions) , U.K.
Selected for IDFA Korean Documentary Workshop 2024, Netherlands
KOFIC Independent Documentary Production Grant, Korea
EIDF Young Pitch Award – 2nd Prize, Korea
GCA Production Grant (Gyeonggi Content Agency), Korea
Selected for Pitch & Catch at the SIWFF, Korea
<Short Film of Feruza>
We made a short documentary about our first encount with Feruza, which was released in 2017. Luckily, we were able to introduce Feruza to the public audiences by being featured in the main news of KBS, a Korean public broadcaster, and topping the real-time search ranking of Korean search portals. Through this film, Feruza visited the Korean Film Festival in 2017 and 2018, and many people have been wondering what Feruza has been up to, cheering for her dream.
The ongoing Finding Feruza is a feature-length documentary about the years of separation caused by war between director Yeyoung and Feruza, and the friendship, conflict, and growth that emerge as they reconnect and confront the changes in their relationship. The project is currently in development with the goal of completion in 2027.