Jeju CBS’s special documentary on the Jeju uprising, titled “A Letter from the Water,” received the Excellence Award at the 2021 Broadcasting Awards, hosted by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) to honor programs produced and broadcasted in Korea over the past year.

Hosted by the Korea Communications Commission on the 13th of this month, the online ceremony for the 2021 Broadcasting Awards gave an Excellence Award for Regional Development to “A Letter from the Water,” a special documentary produced by Jeju CBS to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the April 3 Jeju uprising.

Planned and reported by journalists Lee In and Go Sang-hyeon and directed by producer Kim Yeong-mi, “A Letter from the Water” is a documentary that explores the traces of the innocent people who were massacred by drowning at the time of the April 3 incident in Jeju, over 70 years ago. The documentary was broadcasted over 43 minutes from 5:05 PM on April 3 of last year, which marked the 72nd anniversary of the tragedy.

The Korea Communications Commission praised “A Letter from the Water,” remarking that it “shed light on those sacrificed in the drowning massacre of April 3 in Jeju, who disappeared without a trace to remember and protect the human rights of the deceased, thereby bringing attention to the tragedy of the massacre and the lives of its victims.”

The KCC particularly stressed that “Jeju CBS successfully garnered public interest toward the local community by showing the burial and incineration sites discovered on Tsushima Island.”

Comprised of three parts, “A Letter from the Water” features the fictional characters of a father, who was killed by drowning at the time of the incident, and his son, who is much older than the father in the present day, as a way to portray the sorrow of the past 70 years.

Part 1 – “A Father Swallowed Up by the Waves” introduces the atrocities committed during the April 3 drowning massacre in Jeju, where human rights were trampled upon to the extent that all memory of the victims’ lives were erased as they were cast into the sea in Jeju without any due legal process.

Part 2 – “A Father’s Trace” reveals the burial and incineration sites for the dead bodies of Korean citizens, which were discovered near seaside villages all over Tsushima Island, Japan, as well as the testimonies of local Tsushima citizens with regard to the circumstances 70 years ago.

Part 3 – “A Son’s Prayers” shows the residents of Tsushima reclaiming the bodies of foreigners and even erecting a memorial, which is contrasted with the apathetic reality in Korea, as the documentary presents future tasks such as investigating the truth behind the drowning massacre.