KBS Film Festival Goes Nationwide

By Han Sang-hee
Staff Reporter

Public broadcast network KBS has opened the fourth KBS Premier Film Festival for a seven-day run starting Aug. 28.

The festival presents eight distinct films previously unavailable in the domestic movie market at ten theaters scattered around the nation, unlike in previous years when the festival was a at single venue due to the limited number of film prints.

The movies will also be available through digital multimedia broadcasting, or DMB, Web sites and Internet protocol TV, or IPTV.

The genres of the movies range from drama and action thrillers to history and comedy, and all of them are making their domestic debuts.

"Elite Squad (2007)" by Brazilian director Jose Padilha won the Golden Bear award at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. Based on a true story, the film is about police officers in the mid-1980s trying to keep a noisy neighborhood quiet six months ahead of the pope's visit.

The French movie "Scorpion (2007)" stars mixed martial arts champion Jerome Le Banner, who won the K-1 World Grand Prix in 2000 and 2001. Directed by Julien Seri, the movie takes viewers to a dark world of murder, mobs, revenge and action.

Actor Richard Gere stars in "The Hunting Party (2007)". An award-winning war correspondent, a cameraman and a young journalist team up to find war criminals in Bosnia, but things get complicated as the targets mistake them for a CIA squad and track them down.

Spend a delighting evening with romantic comedies from France and the United States with the movies "48 Hours a Day (2007)" and "Black Balloon (2006)", which won the Crystal Bear award in Berlin this year.

Or get ready for the gritty action thriller "Bluff (2007)" from Columbian director Felipe Martinez.

Journey back to ancient Persia and experience the agonizing life of a queen and her death-defying battle to rescue Jews in the American film "One Night With the King (2006)". The movie was named Best Film at the Character and Morality Entertainment Awards last year.

KBS has also prepared its six-part documentary "Chamagodo" as a full-length movie to be screened in theaters along with the other seven films.

Traveling more than 5,000 kilometers, "Chamagodo" is set in Tibet, the Himalayas and finally India and Nepal. It features one of the highest, most dangerous and beautiful roads in the world that was used as an important commercial route 200 years before the Silk Road, and introduces the civilization, culture and history of the area.

A single ticket costing 10,000 won allows entry to all eight movies. For more information, call 1544-0070 or visit Open the link