Forgot password

  

 

January 25th at 9 pm, Korean film professionals gathered at a popular Chinese restaurant and festival guests’ favorite, Tai Wu, located near the de Doelen Center where the 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) was being held. It was a dinner for directors and film professionals hosted by director JANG Jin who was invited to the festival as the special guest through the retrospective program. JANG was selected to be highlighted for this festival in a program where Rotterdam selects an auteur each year to screen the filmmaker’s signature films. The title of this year’s program was ‘Signals: Jang Jin’. Accompanied by a few drinks, the night was merry among the attendees. Not only did JANG Jin have a retrospective program, but seven other Korean filmmakers were showcasing their latest work at IFFR.

 

A burning night of Korean cinema
This year’s IFFR was a 12-day event from January 21st to February 1st. Famous for discovering upcoming new talents and supporting progressive film auteurs, the festival has maintained an in-depth relationship with Korean cinema throughout the years. Just by looking at the history of main competition section’s ‘Tiger Award’ winners from Korea, there are quite a few including HONG Sang-soo’s The Day A Pig Fell Into a Well (1996), PARK Chan-ok’s Jealousy is My Middle Name (2002), YANG Ik-june’s Breathless (2008), PARK Jung-bum’s The Journals of Musan (2010), and LEE Su-jin’s Han Gong-ju. The presence of Korean cinema has been rising since the 2000s and this year eight directors were invited with their films. In addition to ‘Signals: Jang Jin’ showcasing 12 films, 7 Korean titles were also invited, which in total adds up to 19 films introduced to the IFFR audience.

 

Without any Korean titles in competition, it was JANG Jin who received the spotlight for this year. Before I left for Rotterdam, there was sense of surprise among Korean film professionals toward the retrospective. Firstly, his relatively short career track was in question and secondly, his body of work did not seem to correspond well with the intrinsic nature of the festival. However, the IFFR’s intentions proved otherwise. Film critic and curator of the event Tony RAYNS wrote in the festival catalogue intro ‘Word Made Flesh’, “When IFFR 2015 is over, you may well find yourself wondering why you didn’t know JANG Jin before…He’s the country’s most famous modern playwright and theatre director – and he’s often on television, recently as the mastermind behind the sketch show Saturday Night Live Korea...But above all the accomplishments on his CV, JANG Jin is know best of all for one thing, satire.” This explains the special focus on JANG Jin’s career as an author and director whose works are based on satire. By highlighting the ‘art of satire’, IFFR steps away from just observing his work within the boundaries of film and directing and shed light on his multi-talented abilities as an author and producer as well. This explains why titles that he developed, produced and wrote such as A Hot Roof (1995), Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005), and The Recipe (2010) are included in the retrospective. JANG Jin’s way of narrative style in reference to Korean society, culture and systems came across as interesting to the audiences. JANG who attended a number of Q&As and discussion sessions, shared his impression on the screenings. “Unlike the general response in Korea, My Son (2007), Romantic Heaven (2011) and We Are Brothers were received very well here. It felt different to see how the [international] audience took interest in family relationships unique to Korea rather than the satire of society and social conditions”.

Han Gong-ju’s Tiger Award win in 2014 reconfirmed the festival’s interest in Korean films, but as displayed in the JANG Jin retrospective, this year offered an opportunity to observe the multi-layered qualities of Korean cinema despite the fact not one single Korean film was invited to the 2015 festival competition. Moreover, we should focus on how evenly Korean films have been spread out in each program. The ‘Bright Future’ section highlighting upcoming talents showcased PARK Jung-bum’s Alive, LEE Kwang-kuk’s A Matter of Interpretation and KIM Tae-yong’s Set Me Free. The ‘Spectrum’ section which serves as a barometer of world cinema landscape with its selection of works from filmmakers whose filmography lists more than three titles chose ROH Gyeong-tae’s Black Stone and JANG Kun-jae’s A Midsummer’s Fantasia. Special programs embraced Korean titles of diverse themes and styles including BOO Ji-young’s Cart in ‘SIGNALS: WHAT THE?!’, and KIM Dong-hoo’s Made in China in ‘SIGNALS: EVERYDAY PROPAGANDA’. There were also directors who already shared a history with IFFR through their previous works: ROH Gyeong-tae who visited with Land Of Scarecrows (2008) and Black Dove (2011), LEE Kwang-kuk with Romance Joe (2011), PARK Jung-bum with The Journals of Musan, and JANG Kun-jae with Eighteen (2009). In the case of BOO Ji-young, KIM Tae-yong and KIM Dong-hoo, they are newcomers to the festival. And through these films, the harmony between commercialism and art, the ensemble of the old and new, and the comparison between the present and the past co-existed, making it possible to map out the current state of Korean cinema.

 

Korean films that heat up Rotterdam
The Korean films at IFFR mostly displayed the current state of Korean society in a variety of ways. The local response to these works was diverse. A 2014 Jeonju International Film Festival’s Jeonju Digital Project film, Alive, received rave reviews. Festival programmer Gerwin TAMSMA moderated a Q&A where most questions were focused on the relationship between the despairing state of existence and film. A number of people read the film as “a tale of Korea’s political and social reality reflected through the film’s gaze at a ‘dwenjang (Korean soybean paste)’ factory laborer’s desperate fight for survival”. The audience also took great interest in PARK Jung-bum’s style of filmmaking where he wears both hats of the main cast and that of the director. Set Me Free attracted attention as well in its depiction of the frantic struggle of an alienated individual placed in a disadvantaged environment. Newcomer KIM Tae-yong explained, “‘house’ in this film is not just a physical space, but also an emotional one that suggests security.” KIM seems to have taken his first step towards a successful career with this film based on personal experience.

ROH Gyeong-tae’s final piece to his ‘environmental issues trilogy’ following Land Of Scarecrows and Black Dove, Black Stone raised questions toward the director’s consistent interest in pollution and environment issues along with Korea’s military service duties which serves as a replication of Korean society. Cart chronicling a supermarket laborers’ fight won over the local audience with its heartfelt drama. A tearful member of the audience commented that “the film’s subject matter is a universal issue, not just confined to Korea”. The KIM Ki-duk-produced and written Made in China also critiques an aspect of Korean society through a Chinese point-of-view. To an audience member asking about the film’s antagonistic portrayal of the Chinese, director KIM Dong-hoo responded by summing up his intentions as “This is a film about Korea, not Chinese people”.

 

A Matter of Interpretation and A Midsummer’s Fantasia step out from reality to explore the world of cinematic imagination. Through creative structure, both films displayed the unique styles of the two directors who are in the course of building cinematic worlds of their own. A Matter of Interpretation which follows the mysterious odyssey of a theater actor placed in a desperate situation displays interesting layers of storytelling by shifting between dreams, dreams within dreams and reality, and breaking the boundaries of each world with sophisticated language. The local audience of IFFR took great interest in the secrets within this attractive tale and the director’s various uses of symbols. With the support of Japan’s Nara International Film Festival, A Midsummer’s Fantasia is a two-part series depicting the ambiguous relationship between reality and film. Director JANG Kun-jae was commented to have “proven his abilities as one of the most talented filmmakers of Korean independent film with the emotional and melancholic drama he presents”.

On January 30th, the highlight of IFFR, the award ceremony was held on the 2nd floor of the ‘Doelen’. Far from any conventional award ceremony, only A Matter of Interpretation was nominated in 2 categories for the ‘Big Screen Award’ at the casual event. Nevertheless, the footprints of Korean films left at the 2015 IFFR were clear and memorable. A total of 19 Korean films were showcased over 5 sections, a lineup that spanned over the entire festival catalogue. Global film industry is paying attention to future Korean film auteurs because of this wide spectrum of Korean films. The crowd and film professionals I met there were also anticipating the Korean filmmakers of 2015 IFFR to return with works that will definitely be recognized by the world.