Writer and Director – Lee Isaac Chung

Producers – Christina Oh, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner

Cinematography – Lachlan Milne

Music – Emile Mosseri

Stars – Steven Yeun (Jacob) , Alan S. Kim (David), Noel Kate Cho (Anne), Youn Yuh-jung (Soonja), Han Ye-ri (Monica) and Will Patton (Paul).

Storyline – The story is semi-autobiographical based on Chung ‘s upbringing and follows a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas during the 1980s in search of their own American Dream.  The family were in California where Jacob had been working in a chicken hatchery factory, earning money but hating every minute of it and longing to return to working on his own farm.  His dream is to grow real Korean vegetables for the many Korean immigrants in the United States, who yearn for a taste of home.  However, his wife Monica, his daughter Anne and his son David do not share his dream and do not like the hard life he has given them.  Jacob’s first task on his farm, is to dig a well and he hires Paul, also an outsider, who is still affected by his time in the Korean War.  Paul in turn, is attracted to the family and the Korean culture.  Unfortunately, little David is not well so Monica’s mother Soonja, arrives from Korea to help the family, but she is loud and brash and creates tensions within the family.  She spends her time growing Minari by the river, from seeds she has brought with her from Korea   Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

Chung and his cinematographer Lachlan Milne photographed the landscape beautifully, and you can see how both Jacob and David could be entranced by its vastness, even for all the trouble it caused.

The film was presented in the "Official Selection" at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.  It was critically acclaimed, with praise for Chung's direction and screenplay, Yeun and Youn's performances, and Emile Mosseri's soundtrack. Nominated six times for the 2021 Oscars. It won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Youn Yuh-jung and some consider it one of the best films of the 2020s, and more generally of the 21st century.

[Minari is an east Asian herb, sometimes called water dropwort or water celery, grown in the wild and treasured by connoisseurs, a little like samphire grass.] 

This event will take place in the Hollingworth Hall (not the Cleary Room) in the Landmark Centre,