Screening and Panel Discussion

The Korean film industry, which once struggled to attract domestic audiences, has been successfully exporting its products and expanding its influence throughout Asia, Europe and North America in the past decade. These days, casual observers associate Korean cinema with the broader cultural phenomenon of hallyu ("Korean Wave"). But contemporary Korean cinema’s roots run deep and hallyu is only the latest chapter in a rich history.

In her new documentary, Cinema Korea (a Dreamville production), Academy Award-nominated director Christine Choy brings together interviews with actors and directors, archival footage of classic Korean films and accounts of defining historical events to give a fully rounded view of Korean film culture. Interviewees include Im Kwon-taek, Kim Ki-duk, Jang Dong-gun, Jeon Ji-hyun, Lee Byung-hun, Kwak Kyung-taek, Bang Eun-jin.

Join The Korea Society for a screening of this exciting new documentary, followed by a discussion on the current state of Korean cinema. Director Christine Choy will introduce her film, and field questions from the audience with Jung-Bong Choi, assistant professor of cinema studies at Tisch School of the Arts and Jina Kim, assistant professor of East Asian Studies at Smith College.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

About the Film

Cinema Korea
2006, 50 minutes
Directed and written by Christine Choy

Christine Choy is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and the chair of the graduate film and television department of New York University. She was trained as an architect, receiving her MS from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Choy earned a directing certificate from the American Film Institute (AFI). She has produced and directed about seventy cinematographic works, including Homes Apart: The Two Koreas (1991), Out in Silence (1994), and In the Name of the Emperor (1994). In the course of her career, she has received over sixty international awards, most notably fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. She also earned an academy award nomination for the documentary film, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1988).

In addition to teaching at New York University, where she became the first chair of the graduate film school of Asian descent, Choy has lectured at Yale, Cornell and SUNY Buffalo. She was also a visiting scholar at Evergreen State College as well as the Oslo and Volda film institutes in Norway.

JungBong Choi is an assistant professor in the department of cinema studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts as well as a visiting assistant professor of cinema studies at Korea National University of Arts. Choi has taught cinema studies and Japanese and Korean media culture at the University of California Santa Barbara and the University of Iowa.

His research centers on the sociopolitical aspects of culture, media/cinema, and digital technologies within the theoretical frameworks of the nation-state and globalization. Other research interests include the hallyu phenomenon, Korean media culture and cultural regionalization in Asia. Choi's writings have appeared in a number of books and journals including the Journal of International Communication, Social Identities, and the Journal of Communication Inquiry. The co-editor of Television, Japan, and Globalization (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming), he is currently at work on a book about the rise of the East Asian cultural sphere.

Jina Kim is an assistant professor of East Asian studies at Smith College. She received her MA and PhD in Asian languages and literature and an MA in international studies from the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the cultural history of early 20th century Korea with primary concentrations in Korean and global modernisms and urban modernity. Other research interests include comparative colonialisms, the Korean diaspora, critical and cultural theory, gender, science and technology studies, film history, and media culture.

Kim is the author of the forthcoming essays “Aesthetics of Horror: Fear and Madness in Contemporary Korean Cinema” and “Love, Loss, and Longing: From Sijo to Contemporary Ballad, A Psychoanalytic Reading.” Kim teaches courses on Korean film, contemporary popular culture, gender and modernity, urban space and identity, and other courses on Korean literature and history. Prior to coming to Smith College, she taught Korean literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania.

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