Udine plans 70s Korean film showcase

The 14th Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy has announced a retrospective of South Korean cinema entitled "The Darkest Decade: Korean Filmmakers in the 1970s". Curated by Korean cinema expert Darcy Paquet (who is also a frequent writer on the KoBiz site and Contributing Editor to Korean Cinema Today), the retrospective will feature ten films that have yet to be screened in the West.

The Udine festival stated in a press release that it is confident the retrospective "will show us how despite the difficult political and social environment, equally repressive and characterized by ferocious censorship, and not with standing the careers of several talented directors being abruptly suspended (LEE Jang-ho was arrested in 1975 for using marijuana, and banned from making films until the assassination of President PARK Chung Hee; SHIN Sang-ok had his license to make films revoked by the government in 1975, and was subsequently kidnapped and taken to North Korea), several directors managed to remain active throughout the 1970s, and produced some of their most memorable works in this period.The Darkest Decade is a celebration of their achievements, and an opportunity to tell, for the first time outside the confines of South Korea, the story of their struggles".

The festival will run April 20 – 28, 2012.

Udine is also due to hold the first part of the 4th Ties That Bind workshop April 22 – 26. The Busan International Film Festival will hold the second part of the workshop Oct. 8 – 11. Ties That Bind will bring together five Asian producers and five European producers with the objective of making a film in coproduction between the two continents.