With or Without You follows the lives of Magg-i and Chun-hee, both widows of the same man. After their husband has passed, the two elderly women continue to share the same house and a tender relationship blessed by moments of wit and humour. The debut documentary of Park Hyuck-jee, shot intermittently over several years, depicts the … [Read More]
Category: Documentaries (page 2)
Documentary screening: Soup and Ideology
After suffering an aneurysm, Yang Yonghi’s mother starts revealing tragic memories of her fleeing Korea during the Jeju incident in 1948. The Japanese-born filmmaker begins to piece together her present and her mother’s past, whom she visits in Osaka every month with her Japanese fiancé. They bond through cooking and tradition, despite their ideological differences … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Jang Yunmi’s Under Construction
Jang Yunmi’s award-winning first feature reflects on the routine of construction worker Sudeok. From a captivating, careful look, as he manufactures reinforcement bars, the film gradually uncovers the physical, emotional and mental impact of his forty-year career in construction. Jang’s compositions, as she delicately interlaces their discussions with her footage, explore the boundaries between the … [Read More]
Shadow Flowers screens at Bertha Dochouse
Revealing a rarely discussed but strongly enforced law in South Korea, Shadow Flowers follows Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean woman, who finds herself trapped in South Korea, from where it is illegal to cross to the North. Desperate to return to her family and loved ones, Kim tried to smuggle herself out and even sought … [Read More]
Documentary screening: Chronicling London Korean Hankyoreh School
We are London Korean Hankyoreh School that started in New Malden in 2014 and the school was created to educate the second generation of Koreans. You may not have heard of our school, but we have been working hard to educate the second generation of Koreans every Saturday at a church located in the heart … [Read More]
Free Chol Soo Lee screens at Sundance Film Fest
In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. After spending years fighting to survive, investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented social justice movement. Free Chol Soo Lee gives voice to a hidden history to ask … [Read More]
Modern Korea Documentary: K-pop Genesis | K pop 창세기
Through this documentary, we review the history of Korean pop music in the 1980s, along with the stories of the teen musicians, who first experienced the changes in the 1990s when ‘music’ was changed to ‘music industry’. In the 1980s, the Korean music industry had a pattern of overworking musicians, and when profits were made … [Read More]
Modern Korea Documentary: The Age of Beasts
The Age of Beasts, a compilation documentary by Jeong Jae-eun, is part of the series Modern Korea 2 produced by Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). The programme traces the long struggle for women’s rights, from challenges to the misogynistic legislative system in the late 1980s to first-ever court case against sexual harassment and the enactment of … [Read More]
Modern Korean history documentary double bill at the KCC
Korean Film Nights presents four episodes of the television documentary series Modern Korea 2, produced by the KBS television channel. Each episode uses footage selected from the vast KBS archives to create compilation narratives that look back at the social, political, and cultural themes that have marked Korea’s history over the decades. The footage and … [Read More]
Korean Film Nights: In Transit
In a special collaboration with Bertha DocHouse and Birkbeck University, the KCCUK presents a journey into contemporary Korean documentary. Two of the screenings are online (free) and two at the Bertha Dochouse in Brunswick Square. We’re particularly looking forward to the opportunity of seeing the second instalment of Kim Soyoung’s Exile trilogy, having caught the … [Read More]
Dan Gordon’s North Korean documentaries now available on Vimeo
If you think that progressing beyond the group stages of the Euros is worth celebrating, maybe you’re right. But the success of the North Korean football team in the 1966 World Cup, in which they reached the quarter finals, was a much bigger achievement. They were the first Asian team to have proceeded beyond the … [Read More]
Assassins: the story of Kim Jong Nam’s murder
Thanks to Jason Verney for drawing our attention to this one. Available on demand / online for an unknown length of time, a documentary about the assassination of Kim Jong Nam. Details of where you can rent it can be found on the film’s website, www.assassins-film.co.uk Assassins Dir: Ryan White (2020, 1h 44m) Available online … [Read More]
Festival of Korean Dance 2020: Online Edition
The real-world Festival of Korean Dance at the end of May had to be cancelled, but we now have an online version, with one or two familiar faces represented. It’s great that as well as online performances, we’ve got some documentaries to let us hear more about the performers. And, for the first time, K-pop … [Read More]
Jeronimo Lim Kim – revolutionary father of the Korean community in Cuba
Those who have read Kim Young-ha’s Black Flower will know about the Koreans who migrated to Mexico in 1905 as farm labourers, just before Korea became a Japanese protectorate. By the time their contracts were up, Japan was about to absorb Korea into their growing empire. Now stateless, some of the migrants stayed in Mexico; … [Read More]
Abandoned Heroes No 43 screens in Wimbledon CANCELLED
Another cancellation I’m afraid… A rare documentary – a UK premiere – on the fate of South Korean prisoners of war in North Korea. The documentary has English subtitles. Advance registration is required. Abandoned Heroes No 43 Wednesday 25 March 2020, 7pm Odeon Cinema | 39 The Broadway | The Crescent | Wimbledon | London … [Read More]
In the Absence screens at ICA, with Q+A
Amid all the justified excitement about Parasite, let’s not forget that Korea has another film with an Oscar nomination this year. Its producer, Gary Byung-Seok Kam, is in town to answer your questions at a screening at the ICA this weekend. In the Absence Dir Yi Seung-Jun, South Korea / USA 2018, 29 min., Korean … [Read More]