By Joon Soh
Staff Reporter
A total of 26 international and 33 local films will be presented at Indieforum 2004, a festival of independent filmmaking taking place at Seoul Art Cinema.
Started in 1996, the annual, non-competitive festival places no restriction on length or genre of work, which ranges from features and animations to documentaries and experimental videos.
The festival will open at 8 p.m. today with two films in English. "Taipai Duree," by Heo Ki-jung is a film that tells a somewhat banal story about a man named Jack Huang and his friends and brings an experimental attitude towards documentary. "He Has Made a Remarkable Improvement in Parting of Copenhagen" by Yoon Song-ho tells of how contemporary independent filmmakers are fighting to keep smaller art film theaters from closing in Seoul.
There will be a relatively large number of feature-length films shown this year, according to organizers. They include the closing film "Yalbun Salgatboda Yalbun (Thinner Than Skin)," about three friends who take a road trip; "Saram-un Muossuro Sanunga (What Do People Live For)," a documentary about family members trying to find the truth about their loved ones who died during the civil demonstrations and "My Generation," a melancholy story about young adults trying to make ends meet.
Indieforum has also invited 15 films from this year's Mediacity10, an art film festival that took place in February in Ontario, Canada; eight works from Filmmakers Information Center, a Japanese organization, and three films from Neo Japan, an independent filmmakers association. Jeremy Rigsby, the programmer for Mediacity10, and Tsuchiya Yutaka of Neo Japan, whose "Peep `TV' Show" also recently screened at the Jeonju International Film Festival, will be present during the festival period.
Local experimental band Astronoise will perform at the opening ceremony, while Baek Hyun-jin, the lead singer of Uhuhboo Project, will give a solo performance at the closing ceremony at 8 p.m. on Sunday.
Tickets are 5,000 won each. For information about the festival in English, go to www.indieforum.org. To inquire about the availability of English subtitles, call (02) 747-2274.
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