Seoul’s film festival tours further afield

The Seoul Independent Film Festival continues to stretch its geographical boundaries. The organizers are touring last year’s prize-winning works and others prepared especially for the tour, having started from Daegu in May. From June 27 to 29, the event will feature at the Haksan Culture Center in Incheon, showing two features and five animated short films.
The festival’s annual tour started in 2004 “as a way to reach audiences who could not be in Seoul for our actual festival,” said Kim Jeong-hyeon, the program coordinator for the festival. “As the festival shows independent films that are hard to find through other media, we felt that it was important for us to showcase the films in other regions besides the capital,” she added.
This year, the tour will visit 12 cities in Korea, including Seoul, Gangneung, Samcheok, Daejeon and Jeju. The committee plans to expand the scale again next year, to include around 20 cities in their program.
Both the feature films won prizes during the 2005 festival held in Seoul in December. “Annyong, Sayonara,” was made by Korean filmmaker Kim Tae-il and Japanese filmmaker Kato Kumiko. The 107-minute documentary deals with the relationship between Korea and Japan after the countries’ brutal 20th century history. It questions whether true peace is possible between the neighbors and how they might move on to the next stage of their relationship. The film was made in 2005, which was the 60th anniversary of Korea’s independence from Japan.
The other feature, “A Great Actor,” by Korean director Shin Yeon-shick, tells the story of Soo-young, a student studying to be a lawyer who decides to enter a theater troupe as an actor.
The five short animation films will be grouped together and shown at 3 p.m. next Tuesday. One of the films, “Whan” by Ju Jae-hyung and Song Seung-min, shows a tiger who escapes from a zoo and another, “Mutual Action of 220 Sec.” by Park Jun-hong, features a juxtaposition of folklore from Korea and other parts of the world.

by Cho Jae-eun

The Seoul Independent Film Festival in Incheon will run from June 27 to 29, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Haksan Culture Center. For more information, call (02) 362-9513 or visit www.siff.or.kr.