The opening performance of the 2019 Festival of Korean Dance is by Modern Table, who closed the K-music festival in 2016. The performance lasts for approximately 1 hour with no interval. Modern Table Dance Company: Sok-do (속도 – Velocity) Friday 31 May 2019, 7:30pm | Buy tickets The Place | 17 Duke’s Road | London … [Read More]
Category: Festivals (page 15)
A Festival of Korean Dance 2019
Here is the official press release for the 2019 Festival of Korean Dance, a collaboration between the Korea Arts Managements Service, the Korean Cultural Centre UK and The Place. Three performances: 31 May: Modern Table Dance Company – Sok-do (Velocity) 4 June: Double Bill – Art Project BORA 7 June: Triple Bill: Choi X Kang … [Read More]
Chihwaseon screens at the National Gallery
The second in the London East Asia Film Festival’s KCinema 100 series is Chihwaseon by the veteran director Im Kwon-taek, which tells the story of iconoclastic Joseon Dynasty artist Jang Seung-eop (pen name Owon). It will be screened at the National Gallery. Chihwaseon (취화선) Dir: Im Kwon-taek (2002, 116 mins) Cast: Choi Min-sik, Ahn Sung-ki … [Read More]
LKFF 2019 Teaser Screening #1: Winter’s Night
This looks like an interesting start to the KCC’s series of teaser screenings: Winter’s Night (겨울밤에) Director: Jang Woo-jin (2018, 98 mins) Starring: Yang Heung-ju, See Young-hwa Picturehouse Central, Monday 15th April 2019, 6:30pm | Book tickets Picturehouse Central welcomes back the London Korean Film Festival for a UK Premiere of Winter’s Night. One cold … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Korean crafts at Collect 2019
Collect at the Saatchi Gallery can always be relied upon to bring together a wide range of high quality crafts, and is a fair where I spend as much time looking at the non-Korean objects as I do the Korean ones. And it’s always wise to keep an eye open, in the non-Korean galleries, because … [Read More]
Screening: Hyperbolae of Youth
LEAFF’s #KCinema100 series, a celebration of the centenary of Korean cinema, starts on Friday with Director Han Hyeong-Mo’s HYPERBOLAE OF YOUTH (1956), one of Korea’s earliest comedies. The screening is at London’s historic Cinema Museum, once home to the great Charlie Chaplin. The screening will be followed by a reception with Korean food and soju … [Read More]
Two Koreans documentaries win at London International Filmmaker Festival
Koreans scored two successes at the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema awards ceremony in London this evening. Producer and curator Stephanie Seungmin Kim collected the award for Best Director of a Foreign Language Documentary Film for ‘Sleepers in Venice’, which gives a behind-the-scenes story of the planning and installation of the collateral group exhibition … [Read More]
Korean Crafts at Collect 2019
I always enjoy visiting Collect – and not just for the Korean exhibitors. Obviously, though, it’s the Korean galleries that attract my attention the most, and it’s good to see the Korean Craft and Design Foundation back for their sixth year. They always present a high quality selection of work; but for me the highlight … [Read More]
Sleepers in Venice screening at London International Filmmaker Festival
I didn’t make it to Venice in 2015, so I managed to miss Sleepers in Venice, a group show of Korean artists curated by Stephanie Seungmin Kim. Fortunately, she producted a documentary of the whole thing, which you can catch at the London International Filmmaker Festival this month. Be there. Sleepers in Venice Directed & … [Read More]
Korean interest at the 2019 London Art Fair
There don’t appear to be many Korean-focused galleries attending the London Art Fair this year – the main one I can find being Skipwiths, in partnership with CAIS Gallery from Seoul. They will be exhibiting work by: Park Jang Nyun | Doo Wha Chung | Yun Hee Toh | Hyojin Park | Chun Kwang Young … [Read More]
A look back at some of the films of 2018
A wide variety of genres was presented to the London audience this year, from the return of the romantic melodrama (Be With You) to big budget fantasy (Along with the Gods). We also saw #MeToo beginning to have an impact, not just in the themes of movies such as Land of Seonghye and Testimony but … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: The Return
I was as delighted as I was surprised when I saw that the London Korean Film Festival had selected The Return for its closing gala screening. The huge numbers of overseas adoptions from Korea is often a sidelined subject and understandably wouldn’t be a natural choice when showcasing Korean culture and arts. But the 2018 … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Microhabitat
Miso just about gets by, living in a cockroach-infested room, earning just enough to pay the rent by taking low-paid cleaning jobs. She has to budget carefully, and can just afford a couple of her little indulgences: smoking cigarettes (preferably foreign brands), and frequenting whisky bars for a drop of single malt on the way … [Read More]
Festival mini movie review: Love+Sling
A sporting rom-com involving a love triangle whose vertices are a well-meaning but over controlling single father (Yoo Hae-jin, 1987); his dutiful son (Kim Min-jae) who is obliging his father by training hard in the skill of greco-Roman wrestling; and the pretty girl next door (Lee Sung-kyung), who inconveniently and inexplicably fancies the father rather … [Read More]
Festival film review: This Charming Girl
Lee Yoon-ki (이윤기) This Charming Girl (여자, 정혜, 2004, 99 mins). Review by Robert Cottingham. You know how people talk about reality TV, even though there is nothing ‘real’ about it? Well, if you wanted to see actual reality, the sheer day-to-day mundane-ness of the average person’s life, then this film is the closest you … [Read More]
Park Ki-yong interview: implication, independence and time in Korean cinema
The veteran director discusses restrained portrayals of sexuality, lessons in economical filmmaking, the pressures facing independent Korean cinema, education and animation at KAFA, improvisation versus scripting, and how Old Love links personal memory with contemporary politics, generational reflection, and Korea’s recent historical moments. [Read More]