ACF 010: NY Korean Film Festival 2006

Still from Murder Take One

Mo' festivals, mo' festivals, and mo' festivals!

This time it's the sixth annual New York Korean Film Festival, which will run from August 25th thru September 3rd at several venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The festival will offer fourteen feature films from 2005 and 2006, seven shorts, three panel discussions and a retrospective of four films by influential director Lee Man-hee. The feature films, many of which will be receiving their U.S. premieres at the festival, come from a wide gamut of genres: horror, comedy, melodrama, action, mystery and period pieces.

Wounding and Healing is the festival's theme this year, a consideration of "how films explore the intricate and powerful way in which human beings break each other down, only to build each other back up again."

The festival's web site is www.koreanfilmfestival.org and has full information about what's happening when and where, as well as descriptions of the films, directors, panelists, etc.

NYKFF 2006 is organized by The Korea Society, where two of the three panel discussions will be held (the first one will be at Korean Cultural Service), and is presented by Samsung.

In a related matter, I gotta throw out a special "head's up." The fall 2006 issue of Asian Cult Cinema magazine (#52) will be a special pictorial issue devoted to Who's Who In Korean Cinema. It should be out around the latter part of October, 2006. Something special to look forward to, I'd say, even if my column and those of my "elder brother" columnists Max Allan Collins and Ric Meyers have to be held off to make room for all the great stuff that I'm sure will be included.