The Past, Present and Future of Women’s Films, The March Goes On
The 19th
SEOUL International Women’s Film Festival (SIWFF) will be held from June 1 – 7. A total of 106 films from 37 countries will be featured under the slogan of ‘The Past, Present and Future of Women’s Films’. From
The Widow, the one and only film made by Korea’s first female filmmaker,
PARK Nam-ok who passed away this April to works from
LEE Kyoung-mi,
YOON Ga-eun and
E.oni whose commercial films attracted much attention in theaters to the latest film from
Gina KIM of
Never Forever, the VR(virtual reality) film
Bloodless, it will be an opportunity to walk through the path that Korean female filmmakers have taken. We sat down with SIWFF programmer,
CHO Hye-young who explained SIWFF’s efforts to encourage and support Asian female filmmakers.
This is the 19th edition of the festival. With the 20th edition coming up next year, this year seems even more important.
The film festival needs to come up with a new vision for its 20th anniversary. Likewise, the 19th edition is important in its own right, but we also believe it is a period that serves as a stepping-stone for the 20th edition. That is why we need to use this opportunity to re-evaluate the existing history of female films, reflect upon our present state, and arrange a table to discuss visions in our policies that will lead us into the future. And that is why our slogan for this year is, ‘The Past, Present and Future of Women’s Films’.
‘Feminist Film Classics’ and the retrospective of Korea’s first filmmaker, PARK Nam-ok are programs highlighting the ‘past’. Especially the PARK Nam-ok retrospective will be quite meaningful to Korean female filmmakers.
The Widow is the first and last film directed by the late PARK Nam-ok. The fact that she made only one film is extremely symbolic. It is said that her ongoing dream was to direct her second film. Female filmmakers are still experiencing much difficulty in directing their feature after showcasing their short film. The same goes for making their second feature. Female students constitute 50% of the total number majoring in film in Korea, and quite a number of award-winning titles are directed by these female students, yet during the course of moving into the commercial film arena, they end up in a bottleneck situation which is also making it hard for veteran female filmmakers to direct their next films. This phenomenon clearly appeared throughout filmmaker PARK Nam-ok’s career. In addition, The Widow is cinematically interesting. Many films dealing with ‘widows’ came out after this film. While most of these films portrayed maternal instincts and a deep yearning for their husbands, the widow in PARK Nam-ok’s work depicts a woman who heartlessly abandons her children to pursue her own life. However there is no ethical judgment to her actions. The film explores a feminist theme unimaginable during the time she made it.
Since last year, female films started attracting attention through the Hollywood films and commercial films from Korean female filmmakers. And the response from young female audience members who started to identify themselves as feminists were enthusiastic. How will the festival reflect this mood?
We actually feel this female film boom shifting towards an interest in SIWFF. Regardless of criticism or praise, the response was quite passionate on social network. In the case of last year, the audience grew despite the downsizing due to budget constraints. When this happens, it would be great to satisfy the audience needs by expanding the festival’s scale, and it’s a pity that we can’t. We can see a prominent change in the tendency of the works submitted this year, especially in the Asian short competition. If past works kept feminist issues in the background of the women’s stories they told, recent works places them at the forefront as they explore the issues of female solidarity, female labor, date violence and so on. It makes you realize that female filmmakers are changing. If this course continues, the festival, with some deeper consideration of the format, can embrace the trend more aggressively.
The ‘Polemics: Technofeminism - Women, Science & SF’ showing the future of female films also looks interesting.
This too has recently become a heated issue among Korean feminists. Films with diverse themes, spanning scientific discourses that attempt to manage and control the female body in the name of reproduction to a focus on how women and minorities are marginalized in the quaternary industry. Generally, science is known to be asexual, but even in this field, male authority exists, and thus it is important to interpret this from a woman’s point-of-view. This is why we have organized a forum such as ‘Polemics: Technofeminism - Women, Science & SF’ to explore these issues together. In addition, a ‘Special Talk: Women, Game and Gamer’ covering feminist issues permeating the game industry which became a heated topic on social network will be held. GTFO: Get the F&#% Out revealing the misogynistic attacks on women in the U.S. game industry will be featured and followed by an open talk with the chairman of Game Rating and Administration Committee, YEO Myung-sook and the president of National D.Va Association, Kim Ji-young. As you can see, the festival will serve as an arena to place the spotlight on themes young Korean feminists are interested in.
What are your 3 recommendations for Korean films at this year’s SIWFF?
First is the VR film,
Bloodless from the director of
Never Forever, Gina KIM. This is a lyrical film that navigates the story of a woman murdered in the U.S. military base of Dongducheon from a gaze that seems to be roaming through the neighborhood. This is a 5 minute short VR film, meaningful for its female viewpoint. We hope that this film will encourage female filmmakers to quickly and easily approach the VR genre. And accordingly we will hold a forum on the production of
Bloodless with the director, producer, editor and cinematographer attending. They will share the difficulties and how to present a balanced female point-of-view when making a VR film. Another film is filmmaker
YU Ji-young’s feature debut film,
Duck Town dealing with a 24-year-old woman’s dream of building a new life hindered after getting involved in an unexpected incident. The comedy-savvy YU Ji-young displays exceptional talent in the way she handles female issues through controversial comedy. The last film is one I would like to introduce to a women’s film festival overseas,
The Truth Beneath. The director of this film, LEE Kyoung-mi refrains from packaging the female lead in any way. It doesn’t matter if the female character is a heroine or an anti-heroine. It is amazing how this character reveals the materialistic female desires that are inevitable in order to survive in the real world, yet maintain a feminist point-of-view. The film also presents how a teenage female character can display a variety of traits regarding friendship, solidarity, the subject of revenge and comedy.