The NZ International Film Festival has always shown a large amount of Korean films. The 5 acclaimed Korean features this year however have already racked up awards and played at festivals around the globe.
First up and most recently is BONG Joong-ho's
"Mother - 2009" which opened in Cannes to rave reviews and stampeded at the box office when it came to Korea. Both
"Mother - 2009" and Cannes winner
Park Chan-wook's
"Thirst" together accumulated a large volume of sales at the festival. Also playing at the NZ festival is the farmer-and-his-cow documentary
"Old Partner" which, as an independent, came from obscurity and gained a total of 2 million local viewers. Another sleeper hit included is
Na Hong-jin's
"The Chaser" that won the 'Best of Pucheon' award at last year's Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival and has since gone on to play in other territories. Korean American,
Kim So-yong's auto-biographical second feature, drama "
Treeless Mountain" after opening the 16th Adana Golden Boll Film Festival and winning at Dubai is also making its NZ debut. Last but not least,
Noh Young-seok's $10,000 (U.S.) feature "
Daytime Drinking" which has appeared at numerous international festivals and has been released in the States will also appear.
The New Zealand International Film Festival already opened July 9 in Auckland, NZ's largest city. It will go on to play in 14 other centres wrapping up in Whangarei November 25.
David Oxenbridge (KOFIC)
