In the early hours of the morning on April 16th 2014, followed by heart-wrenching days of rescue, the hearts of the South Korean nation broke as one as the ferry MV Sewol sank and claimed the lives of 304 passengers and crew members. The tragedy was made worse as 250 of the victims were juniors…
Category: Film events and festivals
What Walaa Wants Review
‘Be careful what you wish for’ is the ominous phrase told to children all over the world when they are desperately grasping for something they don’t quite understand. In this case, young Walaa Khaled Fawzy Tanji wants nothing more than to gain a firm grasp of power in a world she has absolutely no authority…
69th Berlin Film Festival: In Conversation with Matija Strniša, a Film Music Composer
The competitive Generation 14plus section of this year’s Berlinale featured international gems with a focus on young adult themes, and the Grand Prix Award for Best Film was awarded to Kim Bora‘s House of Hummingbird, which finally got its European premiere after wowing the audience with its world premiere at the 2018 Busan International Film…
69th Berlin Film Festival: Vice Review
Adam McKay, with great stubbornness, taste and exceptional layers of humour, has been known to show the bright and dark sides of the USA through his filmmaking. Although he has many films under his belt, it was his 2015 feature The Big Short about the 2008 US financial crisis that got everyone talking; McKay superbly…
69th Berlin Film Festival: A Colony Review
‘If you were in the wild, you’d be eaten!’ is a line spat at pre-teen Mylia by her younger sister, Camille, referring to Mylia’s meek and unopinionated existence. Geneviève Dulude-De Celles’ latest piece A Colony is a thoughtful and perceptive look into teenage anxiety and how, in high school, invisibility and diffidence can be a…
In Conversation with Steven Yeun of ‘Burning’
Steven Yeun greets me with a big smile and a warm handshake as we meet at the Mayfair hotel in London on a cold October morning. We sit down and chat about what it means to be a Korean-American, his latest production Burning, and working with Lee Chang-dong. Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised…
Fauve Review
Kicking off with an orchestra of cicadas, chirping birds, and the sound of rocks crunching under worn-out trainers, Fauve sets itself up as an ode to the rural and nostalgic. Two troublemaker preteen boys Benjamin (Alexandre Perreault) and Tyler (Félix Grenier), are roaming around an abandoned railway track; locking each other in deserted train carriages,…
Lee Chang-dong’s Burning
The attempts to translate Haruki Murakami‘s prose into the cinematic language have so far mostly ended in spectacular disasters, or – in the best case – garnered mixed reviews, probably due to the specific style of the writer. But the fates have changed when Lee Chang-dong, the director of Poetry and Peppermint Candy, returned after 6 years of…
Roma Review
Roma follows the story of Cleo (Yalitza Aparico), a young indigenous housekeeper working for a middle-class family in Mexico City during the early ‘70s. Partly based off Alfonso Cuarón’s own childhood, Roma is an ode to the woman who helped raise him. Reflecting on a perspective of his upbringing that is different to his own,…
13th London Korean Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Yang-hee and Yang Ik-june of ‘The Poet and the Boy’
The Poet and the Boy is a feature debut by Korean filmmaker Kim Yang-hee, starring Yang Ik-june, an actor and a filmmaker himself, who gained the public attention and won several awards with his semi-autobiographical feature debut, which he wrote, directed and played the leading role in – the 2009 indie hit Breathless. With her…
13th London Korean Film Festival: The Poet and the Boy Review
The Poet and the Boy (Si-e-nui a-rang) is the feature debut for Kim Yang-hee; it premiered at Jeonju International film festival in 2017, and made its way to London Korean Film Festival this fall. The film stars South Korean actor and filmmaker Yang Ik-june, who is best known for his debut film, which he both…
13th London Korean Film Festival: Microhabitat Review
Despite the complexity of portraying homelessness on screen, filmmakers keep rising to the challenge. The South Korean filmmaker Jeon Go-woon skillfully depicted the subject in her debut feature Microhabitat, in which she also questions different aspects of adult life. The film revolves around the character of Mi-so (Esom: Warriors of the Dawn, The Third Charm TV…
13th London Korean Film Festival: The Princess and the Matchmaker Review
A long wait for a premiere of a film never bodes well, even though it might be because the producers want to avoid the film clashing with the releases of other big productions, or because the progress has been slowed down by a prolonged post-production. The latter especially implies that the producer isn’t sure about…
13th London Korean Film Festival: Old Love Review
After living in Canada for many years, Yoon-hee returns to her home country of South Korea to visit her mother who has dementia. Taking a cigarette break outside Incheon airport, she runs into Jung-soo, an old college sweetheart. The pair is surprised to see each other and agrees to catch-up about the last twenty years…
