Out is the second installation from WOM, the Feminist Video Activism’s “Smashing Homophobia Project,” building on Lesbian Censorship in School 1 (2005). Founded in 2001, WOM aims to create a women’s movement through collective audio-visual works, with previous videos confronting war and sex trafficking. In Out, teenage lesbians in Korea use “self-camera” (video diaries) to reflect on their subjective struggles with coming out, rocky relationships and bisexuality.

Out is a compilation of engaging stories: In Coming Out: “I have a boyfriend, how can I be lesbian?,” Chun-jae grapples with the fundamental confusion associated with sexual identity. In Outing: “Is this love or friendship?,” high school dropout Cho-i is going steady with a girl for the first time, only to find herself agonizing about her sexuality again when the two break up. In Outsider: “Mom, actually I’m lesbian!,” Koma has been outed and bullied by her younger sisters for a long time. But keeping her lesbianism a secret from others is much harder in her day job as a self-identified activist at a Korean lesbian counseling center.

For all three girls, the cameras become a means to voice their issues, but also to question Korea’s family and school institutions, which perpetuate discrimination and rampant homophobia. Out’s pensive visual style reflects the frustrating isolation all too common among queer youth worldwide.