Taipei, Taiwan — One Monday morning, 200 audience members settled their seats for a sold-out "K-Family Affairs" (in Korean "Aeguksonyeo"), a feature documentary, director Nam Arum's first, about her family, their patriotic zeal and disillusionment with South Korean democracy. It was screened by the Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF), a superb, if underrated, film festival held biannually. TIDF flew Nam and others from countries like Argentina, Myanmar, Iran and Indonesia for screenings followed by Q&A. "K-Family Affairs'' won the Jury Prize for Asian Voices.

Born December 1993, Nam Arum’s birthday shared with a twin sister — younger by a few minutes — landed on the day that South Korean democracy truly began, she says: the trial of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. With the lifting of martial law, her mom, a feminist, was overjoyed by the coincidence. Her father, an activist broadcast journalist in university, was cheered by this auspicious start. An early adopter of the video camera, he filmed the girls’ every coo, smile and birthday. Every five years, the presidential democratic election took place on her birthday. His home videos are cut with radio and television news broadcasts. She waves the flag and sings the national anthem. Democracy was a gift, the best gift she thought she could ever receive.

She'd inherited the ideals of her parents, members of the 386 generation who strove for........

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