“Silenced” (도가니)

Based on Gong Ji-young’s 2009 novel, “Silenced” is a brutal look at the systematic torture of children at a facility for the hearing impaired. Though Gong’s book is fictional, the stories she tells are based on the decades of real-life abuse that handicapped students endured at the Gwangju Inhwa School for the Deaf.

“The Way Home” (집으로)

“The Way Home” is a bittersweet film about a young Seoul boy who is forced to spend the summer with his grandmother, who lives in the countryside. It’s not a quaint rural area that rich folks like to vacation in. Rather, it’s a small village where the bus comes on a irregular schedule and an angry cow chases little children.