Artists from small nations are viewed differently from those of from large nations. By Darcy PAQUET (Koreanfilm.org) At a Q&A session, I once heard PARK Chan-wook comment about the great director KIM Ki-young. “If he had been born into another country, he could have been recognized today as a master of world cinema,” he said. KIM had [...]

It's the question I hope to avoid every time someone asks to interview me, and inevitably, the question always surfaces. "What is it that is special or unique about Korean cinema?" It's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, and if it were me conducting the interview, I'd probably ask it too.

The film Passerby #3, released on November 18th, is based on the autobiography of director SHIN Su-won. Just like the director who has challenged film production after quitting his job as a teacher at junior high school for 7 years, the woman in the film works hard to make her own film in her middle age.

Chuseok is the biggest holiday in Korea and also the busiest season of the year for box-office. Along with New Year’s holiday, Chuseok season traditionally saw the increasing preference of the audience on Korean films, thus had always been a target point of the Korean film industry. Especially with this year’s Chuseok being longer than usual, the competition among Korean films for box-office became tougher than ever.

In late September, the San Sebastian International Film Festival presented a special focus on nonfiction cinema in the 21st century. It is an appropriate time to be thinking about documentaries. The past decade has seen so many interesting developments and innovations in the form that the term "documentary" itself is starting to feel somewhat restrictive. As filmmakers explore more deeply concepts related to truth and authenticity, and deliberately blur the lines between the factual and the fictitious, a new kind of film is emerging.

Surely everyone can agree that the screenplay is one of the most fundamental aspects of any film. Occasionally a director or a talented group of actors can turn a mediocre screenplay into a great film (or vice versa), but this is not the norm. The screenplay is the base material from which the director, cast and crew shape a film. In a general sense, good films require good screenplays.

The technology of 3D is indeed the hottest issue now in film industry as much as the smartphone is the main trend in the mobile industry. Needless to say, increase of the number of 3D-equipped theaters is the result from the magnificent success of Avatar . 3D theatrical system is rapidly being installed in traditional theaters with the expectation of market expansion and this trend can be found not only in theater but also in TV and home theater market.

As far as I remember, it was in the middle of 1990s that the term and notion of “Auteurism” was introduced to Korea. During that time, a few professional film magazines were sprouted out in responding to the increasing demand of readers having an academic interest in the essence of cinema and the magazines inwardly suggested their readers to approach films with the frame of auteurism.

Films by Korea's best-known auteurs tend to come in bunches. Specifically, in May: the publicity and fame associated with a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival has created a somewhat skewed production schedule whereby all the year's highest-profile films emrge in early spring. This year is no exception: Cannes presents new films by LEE Chang-dong (Poetry, screening in competition), IM Sang-soo (The Housemaid, also in competition) and HONG Sangsoo (Hahaha, in Un Certain Regard).