Movies Similar to Diaspora: Arirang Road

Ôrí(1989)

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

The Ukishima Maru Massacre(2019)

22nd of August, 1945. Japan lost the war and they loaded an 8,000 person Joseon laborer force onto a ship called the Ukisima to take them to the Busan Port. However, the ship sunk into the water due to an unknown blast. This is the story of thousands of Joseon people who dreamed of returning to their families and how they died.

Jeronimo(2019)

Born to Korean immigrant parents freed from indentured servitude in early twentieth century Mexico, Jerónimo Lim Kim joins the Cuban Revolution with his law school classmate Fidel Castro and becomes an accomplished government official in the Castro regime, until he rediscovers his ethnic roots and dedicates his later life to reconstructing his Korean Cuban identity. After Jerónimo's death, younger Korean Cubans recognize his legacy, but it is not until they are presented with the opportunity to visit South Korea that questions about their mixed identity resurface.

President - Documentary(2019)

Yellow Ribbon(2021)

Patriot Game 2 - To Call a Deer a Horse(2019)

Blood and Water(2007)

When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything." A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando. A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.

My Love, Don't Cross That River(2014)

There lives a couple known as "100-year-old lovebirds". They're like fairy tale characters: the husband is strong like a woodman, and the wife is full of charms like a princess. They dearly love each other, wear Korean traditional clothes together, and still fall asleep hand in hand. However, death, quietly and like a thief, sits between them. This film starts from that moment, and follows the last moments of 76 years of their marriage.

The VICE Guide to North Korea(2008)

"Getting into North Korea was one of the hardest and weirdest processes VBS has ever dealt with. They finally said, “OK, OK, you can come. But only as tourists.” At the airport, the North Korean consulate brought us to a restaurant and these women came out and started singing North Korean nationalist songs. We were thinking, “Look, we were just on a plane for 20 hours. Can we just go to bed?” but this guy with our group who was from the LA Times told us, “Everyone in here besides us is secret police. If you don’t act excited then you’re not going to get your visa. So we got drunk and jumped up onstage and sang songs with the girls. The next day we got our visas. A lot of people we had gone with didn’t get theirs. That was our first hint at just what a freaky, freaky trip we were embarking on…" -VICE Founder Shane Smith

Arada(2021)

The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.

Twinsters(2015)

Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.

Project Cheonan Ship(2013)

Interpreting an event of ROKS Cheonan corvette, torpedoed and sunken by North Korea, this documentary rebuilds the event with a different insight. No one can tell if the investigation of Cheonan has reached compelling conclusion. But the film tells and reveals how unreasonable Korean society is.

Army(2018)

"You belong to the country for the next two years." The film describes Woo-cheol's struggles with becoming part of a group while trying to maintain his individuality throughout his military service period. A humorous yet cynical portrait of military groupism.

Our Algeria(1959)

"Djazaïrouna", produced by the cinema service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA), is a montage film intended to inform the international community at the UN in 1959 on the objectives pursued by the Algerian resistance during the war of 'Algeria. Independence in Algeria (1954-1962). In 1959, Djamel-Eddine Chanderli and Mohammed Lakdar-Hamina produced Djazaïrouna (Our Algeria) from images taken by René Vautier and Doctor Pierre Chaulet. This film, completed a little later and will result in the film “The Voice of the People”. This documentary on the history of Algeria through a montage of current events, traces the political and military actions of the A.L.N, the demonstrations of December 1960, and the attack on a fortified French base on the border between Algeria and Tunisia.

The Lebanese Burger Mafia(2023)

The heir to a Burger Baron franchise, the filmmaker chases clues through rural Alberta, capturing the trials and tribulations of Arab immigrants while uncovering the saga of a rogue fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a cult following.

The Wandering Chef(2020)

Jiho Im is a world-class chef who wanders the mountainous Korean peninsula on foot for unorthodox ingredients—acorns, weeds, and moss. Along his way, he cooks meals and develops deep relationships with the elders he meets. When one of his closest friends dies, he faces the challenge of his lifetime: cooking a 108-course feast in her honor for her family.

In the Absence(2018)

When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.

Aim High In Creation!(2013)

A revolutionary film about the cinematic genius of North Korea's late Dear Leader Kim Jung-IL, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart - a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 manifesto. Through the shared love of cinema, AIM HIGH IN CREATION! forges an astonishing new bond between the hidden filmmakers of North Korea and their Free World collaborators. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live, are family.

I Wish I Could Be Japanese(1992)

The film deals with the rights of Japanese-Koreans -born in Japan but without Japanese passport or nationality- and the social rejection that they face if they don’t integrate completely, abandoning their Korean identity. The film’s main thread is the story of a Korean man, who in the times of the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, is sent to Japan to fight along with the Japanese in the Philippines, but after the war and fearing discrimination, creates a Japanese identity for himself and manages to get married and have children without his family ever knowing about his origins for 50 years until he is arrested in 1985 for forging official documents and in suspicion of being a spy from North Korea. (…) © timegoesbyin.wordpress.com/tag/i-wanted-to-be-japanese

Tiger Spirit(2008)

Korea is a divided nation. Filmmaker Min Sook Lee sets out on a revelatory, emotion-charged journey into Korea’s broken heart, exploring the rhetoric and realism of reunification through the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.