The Late and Post-Dictatorship Cinephilia Boom and Art Houses in South Korea

Examines the 1990s growth of art film exhibition, consumption, and cinephilia within South Korean cinema.

• This book is a narrative history of art film exhibition and cinephilia in post-dictatorship South Korea
• It is the first study to consider the practical, cultural, and social experience of cinema-going during a formative period of Korean film history
• It presents an argument about the important legacy of the 1990s period of cinephilia; especially, its connections to the critical and economic success of South Korean film
• The book charts the rise and subsequent fall of art film exhibition spaces like videotheques (cinematheques) and independent art houses and the reasons for the decline of the art film sector
• The research is based on data drawn from contemporary media reports, archival research, as well as interviews and surveys with art film exhibitors, distributors, importers, and spectators from the period

This monograph examines an unexplored area of South Korean cinema history– the 1985-1997 growth of art film exhibition, consumption, and cinephilia. This moment of heightened interest in art film altered how many Koreans conceptualised cinema and helped pave the way for the critical success of South Korean film.

This historical study analyses the cultural, political, social, and economic developments of the post-1985 period that increased interest in European art film. It looks at the interactions of art house exhibitors with cinephile audiences, the media and the state-level administrators responsible for governing the industry. The aim of young cinephiles was nothing less than a bottom-up cultural transformation of a society emerging from three decades of dictatorship. The analysis is based on the previously unheard voices of audiences who participated in the cinephilia. This study is both a history of an era in Korean cinema and an argument about the impact of this period of cultural renewal on the industry.

Source: publisher’s website