The Korean Film Archive (KOFA) and the Taiwan Film Institute (TFI) have joined forces on an initiative that will see the institutions collaborate on film preservation and cinematic exchanges. The organizations signed a memorandum of understanding that will advance their mutual collaboration and exchanges on film restoration, research and promotion.

The MoU encompasses training digital restoration professionals, restoring classic films, arranging screening events and translating and publishing related research. The collaboration will build on the joint projects that the institutions, which are both members of the International Federation of Film Archives and the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association, have already worked on together.

One such example of prior collaboration includes the discovery of the 1962 Korean film Cool And Cold from director LEE Kang-cheon, which was thought lost until it was discovered at TFI in 2015. KOFA was subsequently able to restore the film and release it in 2017.

The pact was signed in Seoul in Tuesday, May 28, by TFI Director CHEN Pin-chuan and KOFA Director JOO Jin-sook. Following the signing ceremony, a special screening was held for Raining in the Mountain, a Taiwan-Hong Kong co-produced 1979 drama directed by the legendary Taiwanese filmmaker KING Hu, which was primarily filmed in South Korea. TFI sourced an original copy of the film from KOFA in 2017 in order to carry out restoration work, and released the film last year.