Familiar Things

Seoul. On the outskirts of South Korea’s glittering metropolis is a place few people know about- a vast landfill site called Flower Island. Populated by those driven from the city by poverty, is it here that 14-year-old Bugeye and his mother arrive, following his father’s internment in a ‘re-education camp’.

As Bugeye and his mother settle in to living among the strange folk of Flower Island, they build themselves a shack and begin earning a living weeding recyclables out of the vast piles of refuse brought in daily from the city. But then Bugeye begins to notice mysterious lights around the landfill at night - and as spring comes to the garbage mountain, a danger that has lain dormant begins to surface.

Vibrant and enchanting, Familiar Things depicts a society on the edge of dizzying economic and social change, and is a haunting reminder to us all to be careful of what we throw away.