“소녀는 소년의 소녀/소년은 소녀의 소원 (A girl is boy’s girl/a boy is a girl’s wish)” —LOONA Haseul, “소년, 소녀 (Let Me In)”

This thesis argues that Faizullah established a subgenre of “panoramic paintings” at Awadh by incorporating pictorial idioms from mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Mughal painting. Rather than perceiving his work primarily as shaped by European prints and technique, I contend that the zenana building (female quarters in elite households and palaces) in Faizullah’s compositions functions as a narrative apparatus, a space where literary imagination and physical reality are made to overlap simultaneously, and that this architectural logic allowed him to articulate a distinctly Awadhi cultural identity in dialogue with Mughal heritage.

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream?
— Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream

No Other Choice was disappointing considering Park Chan-wook’s previous films, though the mise-en-scène was impressive.

I was working at the Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY) when we hosted a screening for Goddess Era (여신시대) on March 19, 2026. While checking in guests, I explained to the audience that this documentary was about Jeju Island’s Haenyeo (women divers) and the spiritual aspect of their labor. When I entered the theater, however, I was confused: the film was nothing like what I had described. My initial thought was that I had misread the description—but I had not. The brochure clearly stated the film was about Haenyeo.