Documentary film The Person in the Blanket, directed by and starring Jeongmi Park, captures a 41-year-old filmmaker’s two-year, zero-budget journey across Europe that began as an escape from workplace abuse in London. Released on July 9, the film chronicles Park’s departure from a Korean public institution job after experiencing severe mistreatment by a superior, leaving her with only two months’ worth of rent and a mounting sense of financial panic.
Escaping Workplace Burnout and Launching a Zero-Budget Experiment in London
According to Park, the project started in 2014 when she mounted an action camera to her chest in a London room and announced her intention to survive for a year without spending money. Facing dwindling savings and the psychological toll of corporate stress, Park told an interviewer on July 2 that her desperate financial situation triggered a sudden anger against living as a slave to money and employment. To sustain herself, she utilized peer-to-peer housing networks to find temporary lodgings in homes left vacant by their owners. Her early survival tactics included “skip diving”—salvaging edible food discarded as waste outside large restaurants and grocery markets—with the help of a friend who joined her to overcome her initial hesitation.
Navigating Alternative Communities and Radical Lifestyles Across the UK
As she grew accustomed to these methods, Park sought out various alternative communities across the United Kingdom. Her travels brought her into contact with squatters occupying abandoned buildings with the owners’ consent, self-sustaining farming collectives, and radical environmental communities that rejected even electrical grids in favor of primitive, self-built power generation. She relied on a donated second-hand bicycle for transportation and connected to the internet in Wi-Fi zones to locate her next destination.
Confronting Deep-Seated Fears and Hitchhiking Across Continental Europe
Approaching the end of her targeted one-year mark, Park experienced persistent anxiety and a sense of alienation rather than triumph. She realized that money had simply served as a shield for deeper fears, prompting her to expand her journey beyond the UK. Hitchhiking across continental Europe, she encountered a wide spectrum of drivers, ranging from kind individuals who shared food and shelter to motorists who made aggressive or inappropriate demands. Along the way, she spent time with a hippie community traveling in a converted large truck who championed peace and love.
Finding the “Dervişi” Identity and Returning to Austere Living in South Korea
Moving through the Baltic states, Greece, Türkiye, and eventually into Iran, Park adopted a mindset of surrendering to circumstances rather than controlling them. Locals consistently offered food and lodging despite her lack of funds. One traveler in Türkiye likened her to a “dervişi”—an Islamic mystical ascetic who wears a coarse blanket and wanders while practicing universal love. That description inspired the title of her documentary and guided her final destination to a dervish gathering in Iran.
Keep reading