The rise of Korea’s film and wider content industry is attributed to a number of different factors with financing and government policy playing an important role along with a genre-savvy generation of directors entering the industry. But education was crucial too owing to film programs at universities and film schools throughout the country. The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has been at the forefront of training a new generation of filmmakers. Established in 1984 by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), it has an impressive alumni with auteurs led by Bong Joon Ho who graduated in the 1990s with the short film Incoherence (1994).

Since then, KAFA has expanded into feature films. It launched its feature film program in 2006 giving selected filmmakers a chance to helm features. Graduates from its regular program consisting of five different majors (directing, cinematography, animation, producing and sound) can apply as well as those with experience making short films. 

Over the last fifteen years KAFA has produced dozens of films including Yoon Sung-hyun’s Bleak Night (2011), Hong Seok-jae’s Socialphobia (2015), Ahn Gooc-jin’s Alice in Earnestland (2015), Han Ka-ram’s Our Body (2019), Hong Sungeun’s Aloners (2021), Kim Se-in’s The Apartment with Two Women (2022) and Kim Bo-sol’s The Square (2024).

KAFA films have premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival, and other festivals in Korea, while they have also secured invitations at leading festivals overseas underscoring the link between festivals and film schools.

This week we will profile some of the KAFA films that have made an impression both locally and internationally through festivals. We’ll begin with Bong Joon Ho’s Incoherence before then turning to Bleak Night, Our Body, Aloners, The Apartment with Two Women and The Square.

Incoherence (1994)

Bong Joon Ho’s graduation KAFA film Incoherence features many of the hallmarks that would come to characterize his later work with its sharp social satire. The short film follows three characters: a newspaper columnist (Yoon Il-joo) who steals milk from resident’s doorsteps, a professor (Yoo Yeon-su) with a pornographic magazine on his desk, and a prosecutor (Kim Roi-ha) who relieves himself in an apartment basement. They come together in the film’s epilogue to be part of talk show discussing behaving appropriately in society and defending conservativism – yet we have seen them being hypocrites.

Kim Roi-ha would be a regular in many of Bong’s film featuring in Barking Dogs Never Bite, Memories of Murder (2003) and The Host (2006). He also starred in Bong’s other KAFA short, White Man (1994).

Akin to Bong’s other work, it’s a comical and layered depiction of society. Responsible for the film’s lighting was Im Jae-hong and Bong’s KAFA peer Jang Joon-hwan who would go on to direct Save the Green Planet! (2003). Incoherence was invited to the Vancouver International Film Festival as well as the Hong Kong International Film Festival giving Bong his first international festival invites before his feature debut Barking Dogs Never Bite in 2000 that stars fellow KAFA graduate Im Sang-soo in a cameo role. Im was a sociology major like Bong at Yonsei University. Some of the directors of the 386 generation wouldn’t necessarily major in film but joined film clubs at university and then take post-graduate courses in film at Korea’s film schools such as KAFA.

Bleak Night (2011)

One of the early feature-length KAFA projects that was popular on the festival circuit was Yoon Sung-hyun’s Bleak Night (2011). It premiered in Busan’s competition section, New Currents winning the New Currents award (sharing it with Park Jung-bum’s The Journals of Musan (2011)) becoming the first KAFA film to do so.  Busan has become a springboard for independent cinema propelling films onto the global stage with films securing invites at leading European film festivals like Berlinale and the International Film Festival Rotterdam that have long supported Korean cinema.

Bleak Night had its international premiere in Rotterdam where it competed for the Tiger Award. Centering on three friends, it adopts a non-linear narrative as the father (Jo Sung-ha) of a student is investigating why his son has taken his own life. In so doing, we discover the cracks that develop between the close friends played by Lee Je-hoon, Seo Jun-young and Park Jeong-min.

KAFA films of the 2010s would often, though not always, exhibit a bleak tone capturing the difficulties facing Korea’s young generation. Bleak Night as the title suggests adopts such an aesthetic as it delves into the complexities of adolescence and friendship.  

Our Body (2019)

Like the wider independent industry, KAFA has afforded female filmmakers with opportunities to make feature films that became increasingly evident in the 2010s. Festivals both in and out of Korea have then screened them giving women directors a voice on the festival circuit.

Han Ka-ram’s Our Body is notable for its female lead played by Choi Hee-seo who is unable to find a real purpose in life feeling deflated studying for the exam to become a public servant. She does find solace in running and forms a relationship with a jogger (Ahn Ji-hye). Much of the film’s palpable tension derives from the conflict between following one’s own individual desires and the expectation to follow social norms echoing other much older films that have delved into this theme. But this feature goes further illustrated through its conclusion with the protagonist following her own wishes.

The film premiered in the Discovery section at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2020 before screening at other festivals including Busan, Hong Kong and the Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Aloners (2021)

Directed by Hong Sung-eun, Aloners produced by KAFA also secured a slot in Discovery at Toronto in 2021. The film premiered in competition at the Jeonju International Film Festival underlining the role played by local film festivals. The film’s lead Gong Seung-yeon won the Best New Actress Award at the 42nd Blue Dragon Awards in what was the latest performer to bag a major award for a role in a KAFA film. Lee Jung-hyun won the Blue Dragon Best Actress Award for her role in Alice in Earnestland, while Lee Je-hoon picked up the Best New Actor accolade at the Blue Dragon Awards for his part in Bleak Night.

Aloners follows a young woman (Gong Seung-yeon) who works at a credit card call center who doesn’t really interact with anyone – either at work or in her personal life. A neighbor who attempts to spark a conversation is found dead a few days later. Relationships then further begin to bother her as her life of solitude is under threat.

Korean films are often about relationships, but this title finds its stride in exploring the theme of living alone that is becoming more common in Korea amidst its chronic low birth rate.

The Apartment with Two Women (2022)

Young directors are continuing to enter the film industry with filmmakers born in the 1990s making waves at film festivals. Yoon Dan-bi did so with her feature Moving On (2020) at the age of just 29. Kim Se-in similarly was in her late twenties when she made The Apartment with Two Women that was produced through KAFA’s feature Film Program.

Apartments have been the setting of several Korean films; from Happy End (1999) to Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) but the events and execution in this narrative that explores the troubled and toxic relationship between a mother (Yang Mal-bok) and daughter (Lym Ji-ho) are refreshingly different. It is done so creatively and intelligently with the claustrophobic atmospherics further heightening the tension.

Like Bleak Night, the film won the New Currents Award (sharing it with Farewell, My Hometown (2021) at the Busan International Film Festival and then travelled widely on the festival circuit screening at the Berlin International film festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival and the Udine Far East Film Festival.

The Square (2024)

KAFA’s feature program now includes animation. Despite the challenges brought about by the change in viewing habits, animation is proving quite resilient in both the local and global film industry demonstrated through titles The First Slam Dunk (2022), Heartsping: Teenieping of Love (2024), Ne Zha 2 (2025) and KPop Demon Hunters (2025). There is also much anticipation for Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming animation The Valley, while Joung Yumi’s animated short Glasses (2025) was one of just two Korean films in Cannes this year. Joung studied animation directing at KAFA.

KAFA’s investment in animation is, therefore, paying off. It has continued to produce animations – films invited to festivals have included Kim Hye-mi’s Climbing (2021) Park Jae-beom’s Mother Land (2023). Kim Bo-sol’s The Square (2024) recently closed the Udine Far East Film Festival and then screened at the world’s leading animation festival, Annecy International Animation Film Festival and played in competition at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). It also competed in the International Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June.

The film set in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang centers on a relationship between a Swedish diplomat and a local traffic officer but after a suspicious man visits their meeting place, she suddenly disappears. The First Secretary begins a frantic search for her before he is due to return home.

Written by Jason Bechervaise

Edited by kofic