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Inspiration
Our inspiration is a powerful true story from 2018, reported by the Gyeonggi Newspaper in South Korea. On a remote island (Boleumdo), a young multicultural child from a Vietnamese family was denied passage on the boat to school simply because there was no school on their island and "no justification" for the transport.
The title "Haekgyo Manggla" is an old Jeolla dialect phrase from South Korea meaning "Make us a school." We were driven by this cry for a basic human right.
What it does
This project is an AI-generated music video that transforms that quiet, real-life struggle into a song. It gives voice to a story that was otherwise forgotten. Using AI, we aimed to prove that "Technology gives voice to those who need to be heard," making their story accessible and resonant on a global scale.
How we built it
This film was made entirely with artificial intelligence.
- Concept & Direction: Junho Her
- Music & Vocals: Lyrics were written by Junho Her, and the complete score and vocals were generated using Suno AI.
- Visual Generation: A combination of Google Veo 3.1, Midjourney, Kling, Nanobanana, Grok, and Sora2 was used to create all visual scenes.
- Editing & Assembly: The final film was produced and edited in CapCut.
Challenges we ran into
The greatest challenge was emotional, not technical. Focusing on the music and story, the hardest part was capturing the elderly couple's complex emotional journey with AI: 1. Their loneliness after their own family has left. 2. The new warmth brought by the immigrant couple. 3. Their decision to stand up for this new couple as if they were family. 4. The final, beautiful resolution of their shared struggle. Expressing this nuanced spectrum of human feeling solely through AI-generated visuals was the central difficulty.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are incredibly proud to announce that the project has been officially selected by the SEOUL INTERNATIONAL AI FILM FESTIVAL (SIAFF). This validation confirms that by sharing this local story from a small country, we can help turn it into a shared global topic for the world to contemplate together. We are also proud of successfully synthesizing multiple AI tools (audio and video) into a single, cohesive narrative that feels human.
What we learned
We learned that AI is not just a technical tool, but a storytelling partner. The key is not just what the AI generates, but how you curate and guide it.
What's next for HAEKGYO MANGGLA (Make Us a School)
Next is the global festival circuit. After submitting to the Chroma Awards, we aim to reach a wider audience. The director, Junho Her, is also in pre-production for a new 10-minute AI short film in collaboration with an Emmy-nominated director.
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