Korean Film Night Held During 70th Cannes Film Festival

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Korean Film Night Held During 70th Cannes Film Festival

May 29, 2017

Writerby Pierce Conran
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Cannes Celebration Includes Tribute to Busan Film Festival Deputy Director KIM Ji-seok

The Korean Film Council (KOFIC) hosted the Korean Film Night during this year’s 70th Cannes Film Festival in order to celebrate the Korean films invited to the festival and to promote exchanges between Korean and international film professionals. The event took place on Monday, May 22nd from 9:30pm onwards and featured around 650 guests.

However, this year’s event was not just one of jubilation as it was also used to mark the untimely death of KIM Ji-seok, the Deputy Director, executive programmer and one of the founding members of the Busan International Film Festival, who passed away on May 18th, while in town for the festival. At the beginning of a brief presentation during the event, a 30-second period of silence was observed for KIM, whose work has led to the discovery and promotion of Korean and Asian cinema around the world during the last 20 years.

Following the brief memorial, the four Korean films screening in Cannes this year were introduced with short clips, which included Hong Sangsoo’s competition entry The Day After and and the special screening Claire’s Camera, as well as the midnight screenings The Villainess from director JUNG Byung-gil and BYUN Sung-hyun’s The Merciless. BONG Joon-ho’s Okja, also screening in competition, was included as a recipient of the Korean Film Council’s Location Incentive for Foreign Audio-Visual Works.

Following the clips, the team of The Villainess, which included director JUNG and actors KIM Ok-vin, SUNG June and KIM Seo-hyung, and director BONG with Okja actors AHN Seo-hyun and BYUN Hee-bong, were welcomed to the stage for a photo op, during which they were also joined by director PARK Chan-wook, who participated on the international jury of this year’s festival.

Other Korean guests included KIM Sang-wook, Content Policy Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Busan International Film Festival Chairman KIM Dong-ho and Director KANG Soo-youn, and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival Chairman CHOI Yong-bae.

International guests at the event included Chinese filmmaker JIA Zhangke, Japanese director KUROSAWA Kiyoshi, and director Brillante MENDOZA of the Philippines. Festival representatives included Christian Jeune, head of the Film department of the Cannes Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival director Carlo Chatrian, Tokyo International Film Festival director HISAMATSU Takeo and Roger Garcia, executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

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