Korean Film Nights 2025
Korean Film Nights (KFN) is a year-round programme of film screenings, mini-lectures and discussions that guide audiences through different aspects of Korean cinema and culture. Having run since 2008, KFN has showcased a wide spectrum of films based around a variety of different themes and is put together in collaboration with external partners to bring fresh insight and diversity to the programme.
The Creative Collaborations of Bong Joon Ho
Thu 24 Apr, 6:10pm
BFI Southbank
Two of director Bong Joon Ho’s close collaborators, production designer Lee Ha-jun and translator Darcy Paquet, join us to discuss working with director Bong on some of his most acclaimed films. Lee will go behind the scenes to share some of the production materials for Parasite, while Paquet will discuss the process of translating many of director Bong’s films into English. The Korean Cultural...
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A Resistance
Wed 26 Feb, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Though set almost entirely within the confines of the notorious Seodaemun Prison, this mostly monochrome feature from writer/director Joe Min-ho (A Million, 2009) uses the incarceration of real-life freedom fighter Yu Gwan-sun (Ko A-sung) to crystallise the ordeals of Korea’s occupation by the Japanese. Though set almost entirely within the confines of the notorious Seodaemun P...
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Korean Film Nights: Ma-eum (마음)
Film is a powerful form of expression; a voice that takes many forms but is at its most powerful when spoken from the heart. “Ma-eum” can mean both heart and mind, symbolising the inseparable bond between reason and emotion. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha describes Ma-eum as a true spirit, an inherent part of a person’s soul that remains unshaken by displacement or oppression. It resides in ...
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Activism and Post-Activism: Korean Documentary Cinema: 1981-2022, A lecture by Prof. Kim Jihoon
Fri 21 Jun, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
“This lecture presents an overview of Activism and Post-Activism: Korean Documentary Cinema: 1981-2022 (Oxford University Press, 2024), the first-ever English-language monograph on Korean non-fiction film and video practices in the non-governmental and non-corporate sectors from their foundational period (early 1980s) to the present. Making tripartite connections between the socio-political his...
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Wed 26 Jun, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Voices of the Silenced (UK Premiere)
Thu 04 Jul, 6:15pm
ICA
This film delves into the historical experiences of Park Soo-nam, born in colonial-era Japan, retracing the journey and the history of ZainichiーKorean in Japan. Through the lens of two 16mm documentary films shot since 1985 and the restoration of unreleased footage, spanning 100,000 feet, it resurrects the testimonies of witnesses. The film raises questions for audiences, probing what was lost...
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Voices of the Silenced, Programme Note
Born in the Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, Park Soo-nam is a second-generation Korean-Japanese. She first gained fame as a bestselling author with her book Crime, Death and Love (1963), which comprises two collections of correspondence between herself and Lee Jin-woo, a Korean-Japanese death row inmate who allegedly murdered two Komatsugawa High School girls in 1958—an incident most known internatio...
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CHORUS + Q&A with the KFN Programmers
Wed 10 Jul, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
A programme of six short films inspired by the legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. This presentation starts with Cha’s Vidéoème before leading into a selection of contemporary artists’ films, placing them in dialogue while celebrating a diversity of voices. Though the architecture of the programme is conceptually framed as a palindrome in three dialectic arcs—exploring language (Cha’s Vidéoème wit...
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The Flower in Hell
지옥화
Mon 13 May, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Set in a weary Seoul, the film follows a gripping love triangle involving Yeong-sik, leader of a munitions-stealing syndicate, Dong-sik, his searching brother, and Sonya, Yeong-sik’s unapologetic lover and sex worker. This cinematic gem authentically captures the complexities of Korean society, blending Italian neorealism with elements of Western crime noir and melodrama. Through themes o...
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Thu 04 Apr, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Wed 13 Mar, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Thu 01 Feb, 6:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Next Door
Thu 17 Aug, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
After a blackout, Chan-woo wakes up beside a dead body in his next-door neighbour’s room. Having no clue of what’s happened, he is forced to make a quick escape, hiding from the spying eyes of his neighbours. In a tour-de-force performance, Oh Dong-min (Chan-woo) plays a young man (and impromptu rapper) who is studying for the police exam when a series of unexpected events deliver a real...
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Korean Film Nights: Labour(s) of Love
The Korean Cultural Centre UK is proud to welcome you back to this year’s documentary strand of our Korean Film Nights, a year-round programme of film screenings and discussions. Following on from 2022’s theme Living Memories, which focused on preserving memories and the truth through documentary, we continue to investigate the documentary form with our new season Labour(s) of Love, curat...
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Underground
언더그라운드
Thu 15 Jun, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Taking a tour around Korea’s public infrastructure, director Kim Jeong-keun beautifully frames the iron temples which keep our cities running. Seeing the artistry in the everyday lives of public workers, the film gives a lot of time to what many would consider unskilled work. Looking at both those in technical college and people who have been working for years, Underground paints a portra...
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Talking Architect
말하는 건축가
Thu 22 Jun, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Talking Architect (Jeong Jae-eun, 2012) functions as a eulogy for the architect Chung Gu-yon, documenting the final year of his life as he undertakes a retrospective exhibition of his own work whilst fighting terminal cancer. The film highlights how his passion for his work extends beyond the buildings to the people that will use them; he creates structures that take care of people and the envi...
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Earth’s Women
땅의 여자
Thu 29 Jun, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
This intimately shot documentary follows on from Kwon’s debut feature, Back to the Soil (2004) in its exploration of bucolic life and farming. The protagonists are college friends struggling to find their place as women in the conservative farming society. As they attempt to carve out roles for themselves, Earth’s Women focuses on the ways the women make space to be heard within the agricultura...
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My Love, Don’t Cross That River
님아, 그 강을 건너지 마오
Thu 06 Jul, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Documentary filmmaker Jin Mo-young gives a new meaning to life and the labour of love in his film My Love Don’t Cross That River (2013). Filmed in Hoengseong County in the Gangwon Province over a 15 month period, the film showcases the love between a couple as they face obstacles of life, family, and death. Jo Byeong-man and Kang Kye-yeol, the married couple, have been married for 76 years and ...
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KFN Seoul on Screen : The Day He Arrives
Thu 06 Apr, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Seongjun(Yu Junsang) heads to Seoul to meet a close friend who lives in the Bukchon area. When the friend doesn’t answer his calls, Seongjun wanders around Bukchon and runs into an actress he used to know. The two talk for a while, but soon part. He makes his way down to Insadong and drinks makgeolli (rice wine) by himself. Some film students at another table ask him to join them-Seongjun used ...
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KFN Seoul on Screen : My Dear Enemy
Thu 09 Mar, 7:00pm
Korean Cultural Centre UK
Jobless and single in her thirties, Hee-soo(Jeon Do-youn) is miserable. On one fine day, she sets out to find Byoung-woon(Ha Jung-woo), her ex-boyfriend. It is not love that brings them together but $1,000 Hee-soo had lent to Byoung-woon a year ago. Byoung-woon is also penniless but surprisingly happy for he knows the girls who are willing to give him money. Afraid Byoung-woon may run off befor...
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KFN Seoul On Screen – Programme Note
In collaboration with The Korean Film Archive (KOFA), The Korean Cultural Centre UK welcomes you in 2023 to Korean Film Nights, our year-round programme of film screenings and talks. We are pleased to share films under the theme of Seoul on Screen. The collection of “Seoul on Screen” is composed of six films that problematize the space and place of Seoul. Although the meaning and ...
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KFN Living Memories – Programme Note
The Korean Cultural Centre UK welcomes you back once again to Korean Film Nights, our year-round programme of film screenings and talks. Following on from 2021’s theme In Transit, which focused on the documentary in relation to marginalised communities, we continue to investigate the documentary form with our new season Living Memories, curated by MA students from Birkbeck University. Drawing ...
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KFN Living Memories: Under Construction
Fri 29 Jul, 6:30pm
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Sq
Jang’s award-winning first feature reflects on the routine of construction worker Sudoek. From a captivating, careful look, as he manufactures reinforcement bars, the film gradually uncovers the physical, emotional and mental impact of his forty-year career in construction. Jang’s compositions, as she delicately interlaces their discussions with her footage, explore the boundaries between the p...
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KFN Living Memories: Halmoni
Thu 04 Aug, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Jo Ok Sim, Halmoni (meaning grandmother in Korean) of the title, reflects on her life as she tends the flowers in her nursery farm at the southernmost tip of Argentina, Ushuaia. Arriving here in 1974 with her schoolteacher husband, he noticed that nobody grew lettuce, and persuaded the government to give him some land so he could try. This is the story of how one unassuming family changed the l...
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KFN Living Memories: Soup and Ideology
Thu 11 Aug, 7:00pm
KCCUK
After suffering an aneurysm, Yang Yonghi’s mother starts revealing tragic memories of her fleeing Korea during the Jeju incident in 1948. The Japanese-born filmmaker begins to piece together her present and her mother’s past, whom she visits in Osaka every month with her Japanese fiancé. They bond through cooking and tradition, despite their ideological differences and Yonghi’s late...
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KFN Living Memories: With or Without You
Thu 18 Aug, 7:00pm
KCCUK
With or Without You follows the lives of Magg-i and Chun-hee, both widows of the same man. After their husband has passed, the two elderly women continue to share the same house and a tender relationship blessed by moments of wit and humour. The debut documentary of Park Hyuck-jee, shot intermittently over several years, depicts the daily struggle of two women brought together by the practice o...
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Factory Complex
위로공단
Thu 25 Aug, 6:30pm
Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Sq
Drawing parallels across several decades, Factory Complex engages with the struggles and suffering of women workers in various industries across Korea and beyond. Beginning with Korean textile workers in the 1960s before taking us inside the textile industry in Cambodia today, the film confronts audiences, drawing on archival footage and testimonies of those who were present in the factories at...
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KFN Summer Nights – Programme Note
In collaboration with the students from the Film Studies, Programming and Curation MA at the National Film and Television School, the Korean Cultural Centre UK is delighted to welcome audiences for another season of Korean Film Nights 2022. As always, our year-long programme aims to foster a deeper understanding of Korean cinema and culture through thematically curated film seasons. For us, thi...
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KFN Summer Nights: The House of Us
Thu 09 Jun, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Hana longs for the kind of family who eat dinner together and go on fun-filled holidays. Instead, her summer vacation is spent eating alone and watching her parents constantly argue. When Hana’s attempts to mend their relationship fall on deaf ears, she befriends sisters, Yoo-mi and Yoo-jin, who themselves have grown weary of constantly moving and rarely seeing their parents. The lonely trio bu...
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KFN Summer Nights: House of Hummingbird
Sat 11 Jun, 5:00pm
KCCUK
In a rapidly expanding Seoul in 1994, Eun-hee’s chaotic life is bearable thanks to her secret boyfriend and best friend at Chinese class. At home, however, her parents are overbearing and distant, focused more on scolding her than addressing their own issues. Eun-hee’s world changes when a new Chinese teacher arrives who takes an interest in her feelings and teaches her about things beyond her ...
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KFN Summer Nights: Gyeongju
Thu 16 Jun, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Choi Hyeon, a Korean professor living in Beijing, returns to his homeland to attend a colleague’s funeral. There, an encounter with long-time friend Chun-won brings back memories of an obscene painting the men saw in a tea-house when visiting the city of Gyeongju. Haunted by an unresolved past, Hyeon sets out to find the artwork, only to discover it has disappeared, and that the shop is n...
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KFN Summer Nights: Sleepless Night
Thu 23 Jun, 7:00pm
KCCUK
During a long, stifling summer, a married couple in their thirties contemplate starting a family but find themselves faced with financial uncertainty. Hyun-soo works in a factory while his wife Joo-hee works as a yoga instructor, as sunny days and sweaty nights drift by, the couple’s conversations are filled with discussions of love and parenthood and all the joys and pressures associated...
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KFN Summer Nights: Poetry
Thu 30 Jun, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Mija is a 66-year-old grandmother living in a modest apartment with her uncommunicative teenage grandson, Jong-wook. Facing the onset of dementia, Mija joins a poetry class, where the tutor encourages students to see beauty in the world. As she begins to craft her poem, writing notes about the things she sees, a sense of strength awakens in Mija. However, life is about to get more complicated w...
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Modern Korea 2 – Programme Note
Korean Film Nights presents four episodes of the television documentary series Modern Korea 2, produced by the KBS television channel. Each episode uses footage selected from the vast KBS archives to create compilation narratives that look back at the social, political, and cultural themes that have marked Korea’s history over the decades. The footage and images of the series are edited from ne...
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[Modern Korea 2, Ep 4] K pop Genesis
K pop 창세기
Thu 05 May, 7:00pm
KCCUK
In the 1980s, the Korean music industry had a pattern of overworking musicians, and when profits were made they would be distributed without proper accounting regulation. Despite this environment, the innovative young musicians of the time endeavoured to make new sounds and performances, and in so doing created Korea’s first generation of electronic music and hip-hop. These pioneering musicia...
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Thu 28 Apr, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Thu 07 Apr, 8:30pm
KCCUK
Thu 07 Apr, 7:00pm
KCCUK
The Road To Sampo
삼포가는 길
Thu 24 Mar, 7:00pm
KCCUK
Korea’s greatest living writer, Hwang Sok-yong, published his much-loved story ‘The Road to Sampo’ in 1973. It is only one of his literary works to evoke the hard lives of the low-paid itinerant workforce, men and women, whose hands, shovels, picks, bodies bore the weight of Park Chung-hee regime of forced economic modernization. Lee Man-hee did not usually turn to literary texts for inspiratio...
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Director Lee Man-hee’s Films
One of the most important Korean filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s, Lee Man-hee established his reputation as a master of genre cinema, at a time the industry had yet to embrace horrors and thrillers, which have since become staples of the local film scene. Born in 1931 as the youngest of eight children, Lee took part in the Korean War as a codebreaker before entering the film industry in 1956, w...
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