| 'Money' Comes Up Rather Short (Source) |
2009/09/03 |
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
Ten rising South Korean filmmakers present seriocomic stories about money matters in the omnibus project "Short! Short! Short! 2009": Show Me the Money.
As much as the opening film for the 10th Jeonju International Film Festival is about money, the tight budget for the project ($5,000 per director) is most palpable. The screaming individuality and experimentalism of each episode compensate, but commercial prospects seem slight and the flick will most likely find a small niche in arthouse cinemas.
The omnibus reel opens with Choi Ik-hwan's one-cut flick "Our Last Words, Live". The "Life Is Cool" director offers a mock home video featuring two despairing young men, who, defrauded, bankrupt and about to get arrested for false charges, try to assert their innocence by recording their last words on tape before committing suicide. But life ― and death ― are often beyond one's control.
In "A Tip for Cigarettes" by Nam Da-jeon, a news rep... |More
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| Pusan's Asian Cinema Fund Selects 25 (Source) |
2009/08/10 |
The Pusan International Film Festival's organizing committee has announced the selection of 25 projects for its Asian Cinema Fund (ACF) 2009. Under three categories, Script Development, Post-Production, and Asian Network of Documentary(AND), ACF will support 10 Korean and 15 Asian projects.
ACF also announced the launch of 2 new funds which take effect in 2010. The first is the Overseas Korean Project Fund which is designed to assist Korean filmmakers residing abroad. KO Young-jae, CEO of Studio Nurimbo, which produced the hit documentary "Our School", initiated the fund. A total of US $83,000 will be made available.
Also added from next year is the AND Distribution Support fund, created by LEE Chung-ryoul, the star director of "Old Partner". His endowment of $83,000 will be used to to provide distribution aid to 1 Korean film and also to support acquisition of local distribution rights for 2 Asian films.
Among the notable Korean directors selected this year for ACF s... |More
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| 'If You Were Me 4', Omnibus Treat (Source) |
2009/05/28 |
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
For its sixth omnibus feature film "If You Were Me 4", the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has brought together five directors to capture the magic and complexities of being a teenager. The closing film for the 2008 Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) makes a promising theatrical release June 4 despite tough competition with big Hollywood flicks.
Along with JIFF's popular digital franchise, the human rights project continues to positively contribute to the omnibus genre. In past years, directors such as Park Chan-wook participated ("If You Were Me", 2003), and this time Bang Eun-jin, Jeon Gye-soo, Lee Hyeon-seung, Yoon Seong-ho and Kim Tae-yong each offer a small gem of a piece.
Bang, who debuted with the bloody thriller "Princess Aurora", offers something bright in "Blue Birds on the Desk". The story itself is rather typical of 1990s TV dramas on growing pains, but cheerful melodies, school uniform-clad dance sequences and slight... |More
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| Jeonju Int'l Film Festival to celebrate 10th anniversary (Source) |
2009/04/10 |
Jeonju, a city about three hours southwest of Seoul, is known for its welcoming citizenry, its signature dish bibimbap (mixed rice and vegetables with gochujang, red pepper paste) and some of Korea's loveliest surviving pre-modern architecture and folk culture.
In Korea's beautiful springtime, the city with the heart of a small town gets more cosmopolitan as it hosts the Jeonju International Film Festival, commonly known as JIFF.
The festival has made its name by sticking to its principle of focusing on promising digital, independent and experimental films, whereas most international film festivals usually boast their number of world or national premieres.
The festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
The 10th Jeonju International Film Festival will be held from Apr. 30 through May 8, featuring 200 films from 42 countries.
The festival will open with "Short! Short! Short! 2009", a digital omnibus film about Korean society being obsessed with money.
The film,... |More
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| Jeonju Fetes Decade of Promoting Indie Cinema (Source) |
2009/04/09 |
10th Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) to Be Held April 30-May 8
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
In 2000, Jeonju, a small town in North Jeolla Province with a reputation for traditionally Korean things, became home to one of the country's most future-thinking film festivals. Over the first decade of the new millennium, the Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) has grown to become a major attraction for independent and art house cinema ― as "the Locarno Film Festival of Asia".
JIFF celebrates its 10th birthday from April 30 to May 8 with a record lineup of 200 films from 42 countries. In addition to showcasing rare-to-see films from different corners of the world, various projects and events await festivalgoers for the special anniversary.
One of the JIFF's unique features is that it commissions special films for the annual event, festival director Min Byung-lock told The Korea Times, Tuesday, in Seoul. This year, Korea's Hong Sang-soo, Japan's Naomi Kawase... |More
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