Documentary about "Hen" released on Apple TV

Directed by Sue Kim, The Last of the Sea Women is about a community of women on Jeju Island in South Korea. For decades they have been freediving, that is, diving under water without oxygen, to collect seafood. This profession is called “haene”, which means “woman of the sea” in Korean.

Nowadays, most professional divers are between 60 and 80 years old, so their profession is under threat. Fewer and fewer young Korean women are willing to devote their lives to such dangerous work in the ocean.

The film's creator, Kim, is the daughter of Korean immigrants, and she first encountered "haen" when she was on vacation in South Korea as a child.

“I was so amazed by them - they were so incredibly brave, bright and confident. They were loud: they fought and laughed, took up their space and emitted very strong energy,” said the director.

The film shows women doing grueling work: every day at six in the morning they dive into the ocean, hold their breath and return to the surface. And so on 100-300 times per working day, which lasts about four hours. They then prepare the catch for sale.

The film is also dedicated to women's protests against the dumping of radioactive water from Fukushima, Japan, into the ocean. One of the “hene” eventually speaks at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Initially, collecting seafood was traditionally a man's job. But according to one version, several centuries ago the number of men on the island began to decline, since most of them died at sea while fishing. And women gradually took over this work.

According to Sue Kim, this is the first documentary about "hyung". The fact is that getting to the fishing villages on Jeju is not so easy. Residents do not usually have contact with townspeople, so the director was assisted by a researcher who had contacts in the community.