Hayoun Kwon director of "Lack of Evidence"

How did you come up with the story?

I heard about Oscar from a friend who works for the committee for defending the rights of foreigners and asylum seekers. She knew I was interested in the topic of reconstruction of memory because of my previous film. It was about a prison in Korea that commemorates the painful history of the Japanese colonization of the country. The prison offers reconstructed torture scenes, with mannequins that move and cry, almost like in a theme park. I made a documentary that was critical towards this kind of reconstruction of memory. Lack of Evidence is different because this time there was no material proof to support Oscar’s story, there was only his memory. My biggest challenge was to find an appropriate way of presenting it.

How did you decide that animation is the right medium for presenting this story?

Oscar’s story doesn’t rely on material proof, but only on a mental image in his memory. That is why I decided to visualize his story in a purely abstract space of computer. It starts as a 3D animation, which during the film starts to show the basis of the construction of the image, devoid of textures and shadows, with only lines. For me it was important to show the skeleton of a 3D image to emphasize its artificiality, its constructed side.

However, there are material proofs of Oscar’s story, right?

Yes, those are the drawing he made and a letter of testimony. These are also the only real, non-animated objects that I shot and used in the film. I’ve put them in the middle of the film to emphasize how the two worlds clash in these objects. I also tried to do it through different animation techniques: to reconstruct Oscar’s story I used 3D animation, and for the administration office where his letter is being discussed I used scotch tapes to make the black lines that create an optical illusion. So I contrasted two types of animation - computer and material - because in this story there are two realities: one is Oscar’s, without proof and credibility, and the other is of the administration, which is an office that exists in reality, but as Oscar cannot get their papers, it’s almost an illusion.

What do you think: is Oscar’s story real?

There is always the question of whether he is telling the truth or lying. Before making this film I did some research about sacrificial rituals in Nigeria, and found out about many strange customs. Personally, I want to believe his story. For the film, I think it doesn’t matter if his story is true or not, because I was exploring the possibilities of the reconstruction of memory and the fictional dimension of testimony. In the end, Oscar is probably the only person who knows if the story is real or not.

By Mario Kozina