The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences added the categories of best supporting actors, male and female, to the Oscar awards in 1937. That was only the ninth ceremony in a total of ninety three so far. One of the several thousand gold-plated statuettes presented since the event began was awarded to the much-loved South Korean actor Youn Yuh-jung (also romanised Yun Yeo-jeong) ...
As its very name suggests, the remit of the Cinema Now strand is to focus on contemporary Korean films – but given that one of the key guiding principles for the programming (besides excellence) is eclecticism, it can be hard to generalise about films which have, after all, been selected in part for their differences and contrasts. For example, there is little common ground between Seo Yu...
To cast one’s eyes over the Korean film industry these days is a bit like surveying wreckage after a storm. It will surely take some time before the mainstream industry is back to normal, but how did Korean independent cinema weather the pandemic? At first glance, one might conclude that it held up better than expected. Major local festivals such as Busan and Jeonju have continued to prem...
In an ongoing collaboration with the Essay Film Festival, the documentary strand of the LKFF has sought, among other things, to shine a light on the rich history and current practice of social and activist documentary in Korea. Following this interest across several years, we have organised sessions dealing with the emergence of independent non-fiction film after the 1980s and filmmakers and fi...
The Seoul International Women’s Film Festival is introducing to audiences at the LKFF two contemporary films by women: Director Lee Woo-jung’s Snowball and Co-directors Park Sohyun, Kangyu Garam, Soram and Lee Somyi’s #AfterMeToo. From their materials and subject matter, from the perspective of style, and also through those women who worked on their production—reflected from all angles across t...