Korean Film Council to hold film festival in China for first time in 9 years

Poster for the Korean Film Council's film festival in Shanghai [KOFIC]

A Korean film festival is being held in China for the first time in nine years, showcasing 15 Korean films, the Korean Film Council (Kofic) announced Friday.

The festival will be held at the Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai from Feb. 17 to 25. China had implemented unofficial bans on Hallyu, or the Korean Wave of pop culture, following Seoul’s decision in 2016 to install the U.S.-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile system in Korea.

The 15 films shown at the festival will be divided into three different categories — films shown at the Cannes Film Festival, auteurism films and genre films. Featured films will include Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Broker” (2022), “Walk up” (2022) by Hong Sang-soo, “The Roundup” (2022) starring Don Lee, “Escape from Mogadishu” (2021) directed by Ryoo Seung-wan and more.

The film festival is one of the two events hosted to celebrate the re-opening of the Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai, which had to temporarily close down due to the resurgence of the pandemic in China in 2022.

“Korean Actors 200” is a photo exhibition that first opened in New York, Seoul and Busan and showcases photographs of key Korean actors of the past, present and future. It will also be held at the Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai.

The Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai is also resuming its library services for all visitors to the center starting as of Friday.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]