2025韩国短片
Geumsong, Dong-gu, Incheon. Following the exodus of over a thousand households, a vast redevelopment zone spanning 160,000 square meters remains as a primordial void, stripped of human presence. At the center of this silent urban wasteland, “Tale” (Seolhwa) closely observes the lives of magpies nesting within the hand’s-width gap of utility pole transformers—a precarious sanctuary flowing with high-voltage electricity.
For these urban magpies, the city's infrastructure serves as a shield against external threats. Throughout the winter, they painstakingly gather twigs to construct their fortress; come spring, they raise their young. Yet, this nest, resting atop a lethal current, is deemed a latent threat to the human city, destined for imminent removal. Within this extremely confined space, the magpie, the human, and the predator repeatedly encounter one another, oscillating between coexistence and conflict. Here, in this narrow gap, cycles of burning, collapsing, disappearing, and being reborn unfold daily.
The film superimposes this physical reality with the ethical narrative of the traditional Korean folktale, “The Grateful Magpie.” In the myth, a magpie sacrifices its body to ring a bell, saving the human who rescued its chicks from a crow. “Tale” juxtaposes the bird tirelessly building its fragile home against the human who must destroy it in the name of safety, while the cries of crows circle like an ancient chorus foretelling revenge and loss.
As human speech, the mechanical noise of the city, and animal cries resonate in uncanny harmony, “Tale” moves toward a zone of indeterminacy where the boundaries between perpetrator and victim, mourning and revenge, history and myth blur into one.