ACF 1769: SLEEPLESS NIGHT at MoMI on Sunday, January 13th

 The Korea Society and the

Museum of the Moving Image present

  Sleepless Night / Jam-mot deun-eun bam

Directed by Jang Kun-jae

Starring: Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Joo-ryeong
South Korea, 2012, 65 min.
When: Sunday, January 13, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria
Map and Directions
Film free with museum admission

The winner of both the Audience and Best Korean Film prizes at the Jeonju International Film Festival, this second feature from young director Jang (Eighteen) is an intimate portrait of a working-middle-class married couple in their early thirties struggling through daily trials and facing the decision of whether to start a family. Finely directed with deceptively simple performances, this short feature is an intense pleasure to experience.

Sleepless Night will be preceded by As the Flames Rose, a short directed by João Rui Guerra da Mata, (Portugal, 2012, 26 min.). On the phone in his dark bedroom, a man relives the end of a turbulent affair, while across town, the city burns.

ACF 1753: BARBIE showing at MoMI tomorrow afternoon

 Barbie

Directed by LEE Sang-woo

South Korea, 2011, 97 minutes

With KIM Sae-ron, KIM Ah-ron, LEE Chun-hee

When: Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 5:00 PM

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, NYC

Travel directions here

Film free with museum admission at MoMI

Barbie, the next co-presentation of The Korea Society and The Museum of the Moving Image's "Korean Cinema Now" series, will be shown tomorrow afternoon at MoMI in Queens, NY.

Synopsis: Soon-young lives with her mentally handicapped father, unscrupulous uncle, and Soon-Ja, her younger sister. When an uncle arranges Soon-young’s adoption to American family for money, the younger sister, who adores her Barbie doll and dreams of one day living in America, decides not to let the adoption happen.

"Korean Cinema Now" will be presented at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. Films are free with museum admission. This tribute is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Taxi 10 minutes from The Korea Society or NQ Train Outbound to 36th Ave., 36th Street and 35th Avenue, Astoria.

ACF 1714: Korean drama CHOKED at MoMI on November 18th, 2012

 Choked / Ka-shi

Directed by Kim Joong-hyun

Starring: Um Tae-goo, Park Se-jin, Kil Hae-yeon
South Korea, 2011, 111 min.
When: Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria
Map and Directions
Film free with museum admission

Amidst an economic downturn, Youn-ho finds all of his relationships threatened by the myriad consequences of debt, materialism, and false entrepreneurial starts. Beautifully shot on widescreen Red during wintertime in Seoul, this impressive first feature by Kim paints a chilly and unforgiving portrait of status-obsessed culture that transcends national borders.

ACF 1594: Free outdoor screening of Kim Ki-duk's SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... and SPRING

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Directed by Kim Ki-duk

Starring: Oh Yeong-su, Kim Jong-ho, Seo Jae-Kyung

South Korea, 2003, 106 minutes

When: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 7 PM

Film begins at sunset

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image/Outdoor Cinema 2012

Socrates Sculpture Park, Vernon Boulevard at Broadway, Long Island City

Map and directions

Admission: Free!!!

The Korea Society and the Museum of The Moving Image co-present Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring—a gorgeously shot feature film that has grossed more in box office receipts than any Korean movie released in United States to date. Directed by phenom Kim Ki-duk (The Isle, Samaritan Girl), the film is a pastoral poem about the changing seasons and a meditation on the cycle of life.

In a tranquil and timeless setting of a temple floating on a lake in a forest, surrounded by mountain spires that cut the monastery off from worldly concerns, an old monk teaches his young disciple the wisdom of Buddha over the many seasons of their lives. In Korean with English subtitles.

ACF 1469: FAILAN at MoMI

Failan

Directed by Song Hae-sung

South Korea, 2001, 116 minutes

Starring: Choi Min-sik, Cecilia Cheung and Jeong Dae-Hoon

When: Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, NYC

Travel directions here

Film free with museum admission at MoMI

The Korea Society's retrospective of three works starring Choi Min-shik, one of Korea’s most recognizable contemporary actors, begins tomorrow with this screening of Failan. In it Choi plays the perfect outsider in Song Hae-sung’s tale of a down-and-out gangster who finally finds love.

Choi Min-shik had numerous television roles, but his big break came in 1999 when he played a cold-blooded North Korean soldier in Swiri (Dir. Kang Je-gyu) and suddenly gained a reputation as one of Korea’s finest actors. His acting dominates the silver screen, but his characters have more than charisma. In Failan, he played a thug, married to a Chinese woman out of convenience, but who sheds tears of regret when his “fake” wife dies. In Strokes of Fire, which won the Best Director Prize at the 55th Cannes Film Festival, he played the famous nineteenth-century Korean painter Jang Seung-up. In 2004, Choi returned to Cannes when director Park Chan-woo’s bloody revenge epic, Old Boy, won the Grand Prix-award. Choi's impassioned and robust acting can seize an audience's heart, and he is now known to film buffs worldwide.

This Choi Min-shik tribute will be presented at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. Films are free with museum admission. This tribute is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Failan info at The Korea Society's website here.

Failan info at MoMI's website here.

ACF 1467: CHOI Min-Shik Tribute

The Korea Society, as part of its ongoing "Korean Cinema Now" program with the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), will be presenting a three film tribute to Korean actor CHOI Min-Shik (also spelled CHOI Min-sik or anglicized as Min-sik CHOI).

The films to be shown are:
Failan - Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 3:00 PM
Stroke of Fire / Chiwaseon, Sunday, June 3rd, 2012 at 3:00 PM
Old Boy, Sunday, July 1st, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Choi Min-shik had numerous television roles, but his big break came in 1999 when he played a cold-blooded North Korean soldier in Swiri (directed by Kang Je-gyu) and suddenly gained a reputation as one of Korea’s finest actors. His acting dominates the silver screen, but his characters have more than charisma. In Failan, he played a thug, married to a Chinese woman out of convenience, but who sheds tears of regret when his “fake” wife dies. In Strokes of Fire, which won the Best Director Prize at the 55th Cannes Film Festival, he played the famous nineteenth-century Korean painter Jang Seung-up. In 2004, Choi returned to Cannes when director Park Chan-woo’s bloody revenge epic, Old Boy, won the Grand Prix-award. Choi's impassioned and robust acting can seize an audience's heart, and he is now known to film buffs worldwide.

This Choi Min-shik tribute will be presented at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. MoMi is located at 36-01 35th Avenue (at 37 Street), Astoria, NY. Travel directions here. Films are free with museum admission.

This tribute is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

In related news, the 11th New York Asian Film Festival (June 29 - July 15) will be bringing CHOI to New York as a guest and will be screening his latest film, Nameless Gangster. NYAFF will also be showing a fistful of his classics, including Oldboy, and his underseen and heartbreaking boxing film, Crying Fist.

ACF 1382: Hong Sang-soo Film Retrospective starts tomorrow

Hong Sang-soo Film Retrospective

The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, NY

From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue

The Korea Society celebrates Asia Week with a screening of works by celebrated director Hong Sang-soo. Since his debut The Day a Pig into the Well in 1996, all of his films were invited by prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Berlin, and New York Film Festivals, and began to receive worldwide attention. This series will present five highly acclaimed films that will be shown at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. This retrospective is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Below is information about the films being screened this weekend.

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well / Daijiga umule pajinnal
1996, 113 minutes 

Starring Bang Eun-hee, Cho eun-sook, Park Jin-seong
When: Saturday, March 17 at 2:00 PM

Hong Sang-soo's debut film was a critical success, winning awards at the Rotterdam and Vancouver film festivals and revealing Hong’s consistent theme of individuals desperately longing for connection. It depicts tangled and tragic relationships: Min-jae obsessed with Hyo-sub, a struggling writer; Po-kyung, a married woman, in an affair with Hyo-sub; and Dong-woo, Po-kyung's husband alone. The title is from a 1954 book by John Cheever.

Woman on the Beach / Haebyonui yeoin 
2006, 128 minutes 
Starring : Go Hyun–jung, Kim Seung–woo, Kim Tae-woo, Song Seon-mi
When: Saturday, March 17 at 5:00 PM

Joong-rae goes on a road trip with friend Chang-wook and Chang-wook's girlfriend, Moon-sook. In the beautiful beach setting of Shinduri, Joong-rae and Moon-sook find themselves attracted to each other and spend a passionate night together. But where does life go the morning after? A filmmaker, writing his latest script at a seaside resort town, becomes involved with two women. As ever, Hong is comically and painfully lucid in outlining the jealousy and self-absorption that fuel his male characters’ excess.

Night and Day / Bamgua nat
2008, 144 minutes
Starring : Kim Yeong-ho, Park Eun-hye, Seo Min-jung
When: Sunday, March 18 at 2:00 PM

Kim Sung-nam, a married 40-something painter in Seoul, flees Korea after he's caught smoking marijuana while drunk at a gathering. In Paris, he takes refuge at a run-down lodge owned by a Korean, calls his abandoned wife, and hits the streets looking for action. Night and Day premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008 and screened at the 46th New York Film Festival.

 Like You Know It All / Jal aljido mothamyeonseo
2009, 126 minutes
Starring: Kim Tae-woo, Uhm Ji-won, Go Hyun-Jung
When: Sunday, March 18 at 5:30 PM

In this entrant into the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight, Kim Tae-woo (Women on the Beach, Woman is the Future of Man) plays a critics’ filmmaker, often drunk and confused as his work takes him across the country and into contact with the past. Director Ku attends a festival in a small town and bumps into old friend, Bu. Over drinks, he meets Bu’s wife. Soon after, Ku goes to Jeju Island to give a lecture. There he meets his college senior and finds out that his new wife is Ku’s love from his twenties. 

ACF 1264: THE DAY HE ARRIVES @ The Museum of the Moving Images

The Day He Arrives / Book chon bang hyang

Directed by HONG Sang-soo

South Korea, 2011, 79 minutes

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image
35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, NYC
From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue

When: Sunday, December 11 @ 4:00PM

Admission: $10 at The Museum of the Moving Image (www.movingimage.us)
and includes museum admission for exhibition viewing before 7:00 PM that day.
 

The Korea Society and Museum of the Moving Image present The Day He Arrives, part of their Korean Cinema Now series. In The Day He Arrives, director Hong Sang-soo tells the tale of former filmmaker Sungjoon, who journeys to Seoul to meet a friend in Bukchon. After waiting, he wanders and crosses paths with an old friend. In Insadong to drink, he meets film students who recognize him and ask him to join in their fun. He spends the night at an ex-girlfriend’s, then wanders about Bukchon the following day, crossing paths with the same old friend. 

The Day He Arrives is filled with nostalgic moments and coincidental run-ins; Hong explores human relations in all their layered complexities. 

More information is available at www.koreasociety.org. 

ACF 1235: THE YELLOW SEA at The Museum of the Moving Image

The Yellow Sea

Directed by Na Hong-jin

When: Sunday, November 20, 2011 @ 4:00 PM

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image 

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria
From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue  

Film free with museum admission at The Museum of the Moving Image.

Next Sunday, November 20th, The Korea Society and the Museum of the Moving Image will present The Yellow Sea as part of Korean Cinema Now at MoMI. The Museum of the Moving Image and The Korea Society have impressed growing audiences in 2011 with an exciting run of new work. In The Yellow Sea, director Na Hong-jin tells a tale where, to bring his wife to Yanbian (on the border of North Korea and China) and pay off his gambling debts, protagonist Kim Gu-nam takes on an assassination job.

After a disastrous mistake, he becomes the target. A part of the 64th Cannes Un Certain Regard line-up, The Yellow Sea follows in the steps of Na’s first action-filled crime thriller, The Chaser, which received high praises in Korea as an upgraded Korean action thriller and was screened in the non-competition category of the 61th Cannes festival.

 

ACF 1171: THE UNJUST coming to The Museum of the Moving Image

The Unjust

Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan
When: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 4:00 PM

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens
From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue 

Film is free with admission to the Museum

The Korea Society and the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image present The Unjust, part of Korean Cinema Now, on New York City’s hottest state-of-the-art screen. Earlier this year, the Museum of the Moving Image and The Korea Society embarked on an exciting run of new work, with highlights from the Busan International Film Festival, that has been warmly received by audiences and the film media.

The Unjust is director Ryoo Seung-wan’s dramatic take on police corruption and features an investigator on the hot seat and a vindictive prosecutor. It is his most successful project yet, earning its place in the top-ten box office list. Director Ryoo is considered one of the best action-film directors in Korea. He debuted in 1996 with the short film Transmutated Head, and went on to make features including Die Bad in 1998, No Blood No Tears in 2002, Arahan in 2004, and City of Violence in 2006.

ACF 1105: Free screening of "The Good, the Bad, the Weird" July 27th

The Good, the Bad, the Weird
Directed by Kim Jee woon
South Korea, 2008, 139 minutes
Where: The Museum of the Moving Image
Outdoor Cinema 2011
Socrates Sculpture Park,
Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City
(N or Q train to Broadway,
eight blocks west at Vernon Boulevard and the East River,
or 8-10 minutes by taxi from The Korea Society)
When: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 7 PM
Film Begins at Sunset
Free Admission through The Museum of the Moving Image.

Join The Korea Society and the Museum of The Moving Image for a cinematic wild ride from director Kim Jee-woon’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Set in the 1930s Manchurian desert, where lawlessness rules and ethnic groups clash, three Korean men fatefully meet on a train: a bounty hunter, the leader of a gang of bandits, and a train robber with nine lives. The three strangers chase across Manchuria to take possession of a valuable map. In Korean with subtitles.

ACF 1045: "Dooman River" to screen June 26th at The Museum of the Moving Image

Photo courtesy of Hamptons International Film Festival

Dooman River
Directed by Zhang Lu
South Korea, 2010, 90 minutes
When: Sunday, June 26 at 6:30 PM
Where: The Museum of the Moving Image
35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria
From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue
Price: $10.00 film only; free with museum admission

Winner of the 2010 Pusan International Film Festival NETPAC Award, Director Zhang Lu’s film explores the friendship between two boys, one a DPRK defector who has crossed the Dooman River and the other an ethnic Korean living in China. When more refugees arrive, their tranquil existence is shattered. Zhang Lu’s careful minimalism infuses emotion and touches the hearts of film-goers. Zhang Lu’s first short film, Eleven, appeared at several international films festivals, including the Venice International Film Festival, Busan Asian Short Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival.

His first feature film, Tang Poetry,’ won the Locarno International Film Festival in 2004. His next film, Grain in Ear,’ won the Grand Prix-New Currents Award at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2005. He also directed Hyazgar (2007), Chongging (2008), and Iri (2008). This screening is part of the Korean Cinema Now showcase, co-presented by the Museum of the Moving Image and The Korea Society.

A co-presentation of The Korea Society and
The Museum of the Moving Image
Part of Korean Cinema Now
Supported by Global Film Initiative

ACF 889: HONG Sang-soo's "Hahaha" to screen at the Museum of the Moving Image

Hahaha
Written and directed by HONG Sang-soo
South Korea, 2010, 115 minutes
When: Sunday, February 20th, 2010 at 6:00 PM
Where: The Museum of the Moving Image
35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, NY
(From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue)

The Korea Society joins the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image in presenting Hong Sang-soo’s entertaining Hahaha, a deceptively light romantic comedy, which won the Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2010.

A filmmaker on the skids plans to move to Canada to meet a film-critic friend. During a drinking session, they decide to share memories of trips they took to the same seaside town.

This special screening will take place in the new 267-seat theater at the Museum of the Moving Image at 35th Avenue & 37th Street in Astoria.

For more information, please visit www.koreasociety.org or www.movingimage.us.

About the Director:
Since winning Best New Director at the Asian Pacific Film Festival, Hong Sang-soo has emerged as a leading contemporary Korean director. Greatly influenced by French New Wave cinema, Hong’s work is unique among Korean filmmakers. He skillfully captures simple moments in life and crafts unforgettable scenes of human relationships and interaction. He won international recognition for The Power of Kangwon Province, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Woman is the Future of Man, The Turning Gate, and Woman on the Beach.