Cinema Snippets

Im Kwon-taekand Park-Chan-wook comment on BIFF tensions, a review of "A Kim Jong-Il Production" by Paul Fischer, and "Seoul Searching" opens CAAMFest.

"South Korean Filmmakers Defend Busan Fest's Artistic Freedom"

Lee Yong-kwan, the Busan International Film Festival's head, has promised to work with local officials after reported conflicts between the city and the country's premier film festival. Mr. Lee does plan to eventually step down, and sees the next one-and-a-half years as a kind of "transition process". But prominent filmmakers have come out and expressed concerns over the cultural merit of future events, and about the possible politicising of BIFF's selection and its threat to creative freedom:

"We should never allow politics to interfere with the festival programming?.This incident cannot be viewed as a political paradigm of conservatives vs. liberals, but as a problem regarding artistic freedom" -Park Chan-wook

"As someone who submits works to film festivals, I don't think anyone would want to attend an event where the host interferes with [the festival programming]" -Im Kwon-taek

?READ MORE ON THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:#

"Making movies in N. Korea: A filmmaker's odd adventure"

Interest in stories from the hermit kingdom are on the rise, and with North Korea's strange necrocracy what it is, any tales that emerge are apt to be brilliant and/or bizarre.

Here's Cara Anna's review of? Paul Fischer's new book: "A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power". Here's a bit of the blurb:

"A nonfiction thriller packed with tension, passion, and politics, author Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production offers a rare glimpse into a secretive world, illuminating a fascinating chapter of North Korea's history that helps explain how it became the hermetically sealed, intensely stage-managed country it remains today"

?READ THE REVIEW FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS:#

"'Seoul Searching': A John Hughes-inspired South Korean film"

CAAMFest 2015 got underway in San Francisco this past Thursday, and Brenson Lee's "Seoul Searching" played opening night. The film, which was inspired by the works of John Hughes, made its premiere at Sundance earlier in the year, but Lee was reportedly more nervous about this screening. Here's an interview? SFGate had with Lee where he shares his thoughts before the big night.

?READ MORE ON SFGATE:#