The 14th Green Film Festival in Seoul was held for a week from May 18. Media freedom took center stage at the start of the festival. Its opening film was “The City of Ghosts,” a documentary about the fight of citizen journalists in a city taken by the IS terrorist group. The organizing committee also presented “Blacklist Awards” at the opening ceremony to comfort filmmakers who suffered blatant censorship, exclusion and discrimination under the previous government and to voice the need to restore a fair environment. The event was based on the belief that human rights and freedom are also values in the realm of the environmental movement.

The awards were given to Rep. Do Jong-hwan, who made public the existence of the artists blacklist; Kim Il-kwon, CEO of Cinema Dal, which was on the verge of business closure due to its distribution of “Diving Bell”; and Choi Jae-won, CEO of With Us Film which was oppressed by the government after it produced “The Attorney,” a film about late former President Rom Moo-hyun.

The film festival attracted more than 7,000 attendees. The top prizes in Green Competition and Korea Green Competition were awarded, respectively, to “Plastic China,” a story of two families working at a recycling factory in China, and “Baek-gu,” which looks into the life of people in a village through the story of a stray dog.