New Digital Festival Announces Line-Up

The inaugural Cinema Digital Seoul festival (CinDi) has announced a line-up of 40 titles, kicking off with David Lynch's DV epic, The Inland Empire on July 20th. The festival, sponsored by the CJ Culture Foundation and the Arts Council Korea, runs until July 27th at the CGV Apgujeong in Seoul.

The festival, in an effort to foster and promote digital filmmaking technologies and aesthetics, will present an Asian competition section consisting of 20 feature-length fiction and documentary works, including several world premieres. Asian directors are eligible to win prizes of up to US$32 000.

Announced in competition are two Korean world premiers, the fictional "After" by director Choi Yong-seok, and the documentary "People Crossing The River: From Tama River to Imjin River" by Kim Deok-cheol.

An additional invitation section will showcase celebrated digital works in recent years, including Abbas Kiarostami's Ten, Michael Mann's Collateral, and Park Chan-wook's "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK".

The new festival is headed by PARK Ki-yong, director of the digital feature "Camel(s)" and Jeong Seong-il-I, a noted film critic and programmer for the Jeonju International Film Festival. The 20 competition titles were chosen from a total of 122 submissions with the help of festival consultants Philip Cheah (Singapore Intl. Film Fest), Ichiyama Shozo (Tokyo Filmex) and Li Cheuk-to (Hong Kong Int. Film Fest.) CinDi will operate on a total budget of US$650 000 and expects to draw an audience of 10 000.

Nigel D'Sa (KOFIC)