Set in 1996, director Lee Ji-eun’s feature debut film “The Hill of Secrets” follows 12-year-old Myung-eun’s growing pains through her relationships with her family, teacher and friends.

Starring actors Moon Seung-a, Kang Gil-woo, Im Seon-woo and Jang Sun, the film vividly depicts the adolescent life of Myung-eun (Moon), who compares her ill-fated family to those of her friends and feels an attachment with her homeroom teacher Ae-ran (Im). She pours all her secrets into her writing as she participates in the city-wide writing contest.

Director and screenwriter Lee said she focused on portraying Myung-eun’s complex world, rather than just the life of a 12-year-old girl.

“The beginning of this film goes back to my young days when the school would conduct a survey on parents’ jobs. It was just a piece of paper but it reveals the society’s stereotyping of jobs and people. I also felt a very strong impulse to portray a new kind of character (of that age). Combining those two factors led to the production of this film,” director Lee told reporters during a press conference held after screening of “The Hill of the Secrets” at CGV Yongsan, Wednesday.

The actors said they were attracted to the atypical way their characters were drawn.

“It was my first time playing a father, and Seong-ho was not a typical father you would normally see on TV or om films. Just as he is a father to someone, he is a friend and a husband to someone else. I was attracted to how director Lee tried to show three-dimensional aspects of Seong-ho,” Kang told reporters.

While Seong-ho is a lazy, free-spirited father who is never friendly to his family, Myung-eun’s mother Kyung-hee is the breadwinner, working day and night at a small salted seafood shop. She is obsessed with earning money to make her dream come true: Living in a nice, big house with a garden. Her hair is always tied up with a yellow elastic band.

“After reading the scenario, I focused on the character of Kyung-hee herself, not seeing Kyung-hee as a mother of Myung-eun. She is a character of contradictions and duplicity. She trusts no one and tries to make realistic choices,” Jang said, adding that acting Kyung-hee reminded her to reflect on her relationship with her mother.

Ae-ran is not a typical teacher, either. She is habitually late to work and the class president Myung-eun often leads the class in her absence.

“I didn’t want to play Ae-ran just as a teacher. She is not a traditional teacher kind of a person, so I put efforts into showing the distance between Myung-eun and Ae-ran. She wants to become a good teacher. Sometimes she’s friendly but seems apathetic about things happening at school. I wanted to portray such aspects of Ae-ran,” said Im.

Moon who played Myung-eun said that although she’s never been ashamed her family like Myung-eun, she totally understood the character’s situation.

Born in 2009, she had not experienced school life in the 1990s, but she said she was able to easily concentrate because she is “an actor.” Director Lee said there was nothing to worry about concerning Moon.

“Those who were 12-year-olds in 1996 must now be in their 30s and 40s and have children. The 1990s was a turbulent time for them and many of them might have experienced heartbreak due to growing pains and society’s stereotyping. I want to comfort them and hope they empathize with the movie,” said director Lee.

“The Hill of the Secrets” opens in local cinema on July 12. The film was invited to the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival last year and received various awards in Korea, including a prize given by Jeonju International Film Festival.