Screenings celebrate 4 decades of film archive

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Screenings celebrate 4 decades of film archive

The Korean Federation of Film Archives (KOFA) will hold a screening festival to commemorate the 40th anniversary of its foundation, starting from Thursday. The event will be held at the headquarters of the Korean Film Archive in Sangam-dong, western Seoul.

Since 1974, the archive has collected, preserved and restored current and classic Korean films. Four decades on, KOFA’s festival aims to provide an opportunity for the public to retrace the history of locally-made movies.

On its opening day, the first Korean-Hong Kong collaboration, “Love With An Alien” (1958), a copy of which was discovered in Hong Kong last year, will be screened in an unusual format that the organization calls “cinemusical.”

To supplement the movie’s lack of sound, actors and musicians will perform on stage with images from the film as a backdrop. This unique demonstration derives from the classic way movie voice-overs were recorded in the 1950s.

Filmmaker Jeon Kye-soo of “Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater” (2006) and “Love Fiction” (2011) will produce the performance, and music director Kim Dong-gi will arrange the film’s score, including the main theme song, “My Heart’s Sun.”

In addition to “Love With An Alien,” silent films such as British auteur Alfred Hitchcock’s debut film “The Pleasure Garden” (1925) and Japanese director Yasujir Ozu’s “I Was Born. But…” (1932) will be screened. Ozu’s first film featuring sound, “The Only Son” (1936), will also be shown to the public.

On Thursday and May 23, an international symposium will take place to discuss the future of the film archive. International experts on film and digital archiving will participate on the panel, and presentations on issues related to film archives are planned. Anyone is free to attend.

Lastly, there will be a special exhibition from Thursday to Aug. 10 at the Korean Film Museum on the first floor of the KOFA building. A wide spectrum of Korean films and their history will be displayed, ranging from silent films to films produced during the Japanese colonial era.

The restoration process of classic films such as Kim Ki-young’s “The Housemaid” (1960) and “Black Hair” (1964) will also be demonstrated through an exhibit.

For more information, see www.koreafilm.or.kr

By JIN EUN-SOO, CONTRIBUTING WRITER [estyle@joongang.co.kr]


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