The London Korean Film Festival, held at BFI Southbank from 12-29 March 2019, is a showcase of the finest in contemporary international cinema. The 10 films that have been selected to be screened during this event are as follows:
The “london korean film festival 2018” is a 10 day event that features over 100 films from around the world. The event will be taking place in London from July 5th to July 15th.
These are the top 10 films to see during the London Korean Film Festival, which runs till November 19th, 2021 in London, United Kingdom.
– A Selection of Films –
Kangyu Garam, Lee Somyi, Park Sohyun, and Soram | #AfterMeToo | 2021 – 84 minutes
How much has changed in Korea since the MeToo movement initially shook the country three years ago? #AfterMeToo addresses the activity and opposition that lasted after the original Me Too frenzy died down. The ‘School Me Too’ movement among students, the aftermath of the Me Too movement in the art world, admissions concerning long-ago sexual trauma and its healing process, and women’s sexual self-determination are all addressed in this anthology documentary.
Each section has its own unique aesthetic, depicting Me Too’s aftermath from many perspectives. The coolness of black-and-white photographs, the dramatic gestures of mime-artistry, the direct confrontation of hurtful places and memories, and the ingenious vitality of illustrations inserted into interview testimony—all of these are tools in the hunt to continue Me Too, and all of these are forms of evidence. Each segment’s approach asks a question regarding the ‘Me Too Movement,’ while simultaneously challenging and interrogating the documentary form via evidence and relics, memories, and recordings. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021 | ICA | 6:30 p.m.
Trailer:
Jung Jae-ik and Seo Tae-Awakening soo’s – South Korea | 2020 – 97 minutes
Jaegi (Jo Min-sang) is disabled and unable to move after a vehicle accident. Given his precarious financial situation, he has to find work – but this will only be feasible with government assistance, which will need a medical examination. He is taken aback when he receives a grade 5 on his test, which is normally reserved for persons with modest difficulties. He begins on a search via numerous bureaucracies to get his rating overturned so that he might receive the help he sorely needs.
Awoke grew out of a filmmaking class for challenged citizens on Jeju Island. Jung Jae-ik, one of the participants, decided to compose a screenplay based on his personal experiences as well as other instances from the handicapped community. Jung would later go on to co-direct the film that resulted. Awoke is a well-told, excellently performed film with an unexpectedly keen edge that is eye-opening in many ways. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 | The Cinema in the Arches | 6:30 p.m.
Trailer:
Chang’s Canola (South Korea, 2016) runs for 116 minutes.
Hong Gyechoon (Youn Yuh-jung) is an elderly diver who still works around Jeju Island’s black rocky shore. Hyeji, her grand-daughter who was left behind by an absconding daughter, is her pride and joy. Little Hyeji (Lee Seul-bi) vanishes one day as the two of them stroll through the town’s major market. We then switch to the narrative of an 18-year-old lady who has been involved with a dangerous crowd in the major metropolis. Even as the elderly woman’s memory begins to wane, this ‘Hyeji,’ a long sought-after grand-daughter, will be restored to Jeju Island and Gyechoon’s apparently endless love. But there are a few things about this sassy new Hyeji that don’t add up (Kim Go-eun).
Scenes between newcomer Kim Go-eun as senior Hyeji and our veteran Youn are among the most satisfying in the film. Kim’s contribution to the play is the young woman’s hard, delicate path to self-respect. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 | ICA | 6:45 p.m.
Trailer:
South Korea | 2020 – 82 minutes | Limecrime by Lee Seung-hwan and Yoo Jae-wook
Songju (Lee Minwoo) and Jooyeon (Jang Yoosang), secondary school friends, seem to have nothing in common. Songju is a lowly student who will most likely follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career as a vehicle mechanic. Jooyeon comes from a rich household and is a talented student. There are no common friends between them. However, they both have a gift for rapping. They went off in search of their aspirations after creating an odd pair known as Limecrime.
Co-directors Lee Seunghwan and Yoo Jaewook used to be in a hip-hop duo called Limecrime in high school, therefore this drama has a strong autobiographical element. However, one of the film’s merits is that it extends beyond the personal to capture the enthusiasm of Korea’s teenage hip-hop movement, all while being fairly astute about class concerns. Songju and Jooyeon are more than genuinely real and multifaceted characters, and the narrative of their relationship is captivating. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 | Genesis Cinema | 6:55 p.m.
Trailer:
South Korea | 2021 – 99 minutes | Recalled by Seo You-min
Soo-jin (Seo Yea-ji) wakes up in the hospital with a significant head injury and no recollection of who she is or how she got there after a fall. Her inability to recollect the past is wildly compensated by apparent clairvoyant talents that allow her to see what is going to happen when she returns home with her solicitous spouse Ji-hoon (Kim Kang-woo) – whom she also does not remember – to their high-rise apartment. All of this would eventually cause her to see her current life and relationships through skeptical eyes.
Seo You-amnesia min’s thriller combines masterfully managed, marvelously unforeseen turns to present an image of a woman lost, traumatized, and gas-lit, yet on the wild, rocky path to recovery, similar to Rowan Joffe’s Before I Go To Sleep (2014). (2021 LKFF)
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 | Genesis Cinema | 6:40 p.m.
Trailer:
Lee Hyukrae, Kim Jungyoung’s Sewing Sisters – South Korea | 2020 – 109 minutes
Many young women from the countryside moved to Seoul in the late 1960s and early 1970s in search of employment in the expanding garment industry and the Pyeonghwa Market sewing factories. They were mercilessly exploited and forced to labor and live in filth; many died of famine and were denied access to education. They became politicized and organized, fighting for the betterment of their lives via the formation of women’s solidarity networks, activist labor clubs, and literacy and learning programs.
The industry and the government were against it, and the existing male-dominated labor organizations were also against it at times. Despite the significant political changes it brought to Korean society, women’s role to the establishment of democratic trade unionism in the 1970s is still underappreciated. Sewing Sisters pays tribute to this history by bringing together some of the women who were at the forefront of the struggle to reminisce candidly about those years, sharing their memories of the challenges, as well as the great victories, they experienced through photographs, documents, manifestos, and the slogans and songs they chanted. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021 | Bertha DocHouse | 6:20 pm
Trailer:
Lee Woo-Snowball jung’s – South Korea | 2021 – 109 minutes
Eighteen-year-olds Kang-yi (Bang Min-a), Ah-ram (Shim Dal-gi), and So-young (Han Sung-min) are inseparable in 1993 Daejeon, the site of Expo ’93. Kang-yi, who is constantly concerned about her friends’ responses; Ah-ram, who would pick up whatever she finds on the street; and So-young, whose tough façade conceals a nervous core. The girls are continually talking about going’somewhere else, someplace new.’ They don’t feel like they belong anywhere, whether it’s at home or at school. ‘How can I convey how comfy my heated bed is that it makes me feel afraid at times,’ Kang-yi admits. The three flee away from home and build their own microcosm, bound together by camaraderie. However, by stepping away from their daily routines, the girls begin to feel as though they have lost touch with one another. Their romantic friendship illusions begin to show cracks.
The ambiguous and uneven sentiments of discontent and discomfort, anxiety and uncertainty, and the heat and stickiness of summer evenings are delicately placed throughout the picture. Director Lee Woo-debut jung’s full length picture is brimming with just as much raw passion as her previous short films, demonstrating an unrivaled aptitude in the telling of coming-of-age tales. (2021 LKFF)
Date and time of screening: November 7th, 2021 | Sunday | ICA | 4:30 p.m.
Trailer:
E J-The Yong’s Bacchus Lady – South Korea | 2016 – 110 minutes
Seoul’s primary east-west thoroughfare Jongno passes through the parklands surrounding the Jongmyo Shrine, which is dedicated to the country’s previous rulers. Old men meet in the park to talk and play paduk, while some impoverished old ladies trawl for clients. One of them is So-young (Youn Yuh-jung). She carries a backpack stuffed with Marlboro cigarettes and the energy drink Bacchus, which serves as cover for the sex services she provides to her old clients. So-life young’s would take an even worse turn despite, or rather because of, her inherent goodness and generosity.
Youn was included in E J-clever yong’s mockumentary Actresses (2009). He casts his dear friend in the most solemn role of her long and diverse career in this film. Youn might have devoured scenery and used it to startle and make people cry. Instead, So-young emerges as a down-to-earth participant-observer, noting the absence of basic dignity and welfare assistance for many of Korea’s elderly folks. (2021 LKFF)
Screening Date: November 6th, 2021 | Saturday | Picturehouse central | 9:00 pm
Trailer:
Lee Joon-The ik’s Book of Fish – South Korea | 2021 – 120 minutes
Exiled to Black Mountain Island for his revolutionary ideas, scholar Chung Yak-jeon (Sul Kyung-gu, a regular in Lee Chang-films) dong’s develops a close, reciprocal bond with local young fisherman Chang-dae (Byun Yo-han), with whom he collaborates on an encyclopaedic, ostensibly apolitical book about the island’s marine life. The interactions between these two very different men provide a dialectic about divisions (of class, gender, religion, and politics) in the early nineteenth century from which modern Korea would emerge, even as the island, at first an undesirable backwater ‘boondocks,’ is soon revealed to be a social utopia and a model mini-state, thanks to the wise influence of its new resident.
Lee Joon-ik (director of Sunny, 2008; The Throne, 2015; Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet, 2016) creates a stunning, often bawdy clash of lofty ideals and hard reality in this predominantly monochromatic epic drama. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 | 6:00 pm | Picturehouse Central
Trailer:
Im Sang-The soo’s Housemaid – South Korea | 2010 – 106 minutes
Within a dynasty of self-indulgent chaebol millionaires, Byeong-sik (Youn Yuh-jung) is the calm, controlled center. She maintains her duty as experienced housemaid and chef with sneaky kindness, having previously worked as a nanny. She employs additional assistance in the shape of Eun-yi (Jeon Do-youn), a young and attractive woman who will also serve as a babysitter to tiny Nami. While his pregnant wife awaits the birth of their twins, the family’s husband utilizes his reptilian charm to captivate Eun-yi. She doesn’t put up a lot of resistance. Eun-own yi’s pregnancy puts in motion the events that would culminate in catastrophe.
Im Sang-soo had a significant task when deciding to recreate Kim Ki-1960 young’s masterpiece The Housemaid. He cleverly chose star Jeon Do-youn as Eun-yi and offered one of Kim’s favorite performers, Youn Yuh-jung, the lead part of Byeong-sik. The fact that Im was able to use a luxury of cinematic instruments that Kim Ki-young could never have envisaged in his scathing assault on the ultra-rich is ironic. (2021 LKFF)
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 | Genesis Cinema | 6:10 p.m.
Trailer:
Please visit https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk for further details.
The “my daughter rescued from the swamp” is a film that takes place in South Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. The film follows a young woman, who is sold into prostitution after her father’s death. The film won Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Academy Awards and was nominated for four other Oscars.
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