Senior characters take center stage, evolving into individual characters

The 12th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival will take place this month on-site as planned, but in a significantly scaled down form amid the COVID-19 pandemic, its organizers said Wednesday. Asia’s largest documentary film festival will run Sept. 17-24 in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, just north of Seoul. The festival, which was originally scheduled to take place at three screening venues, will now be held only at the Megabox Baekseok branch. Audience numbers will be limited to 50 p

Back in January, how long the COVID-19 pandemic would last was anyone’s guess. The organizers of the annual Busan International Film Festival slated for next month probably had no idea that it would continue to wreak havoc. The official preview press conference scheduled for Sept. 7 was canceled as the novel coronavirus spreads wider and faster than before in what is seen as a second surge. “We were supposed to announce whether the event would be held offline during the press co

Sci-fi blockbuster ‘Space Sweepers’ proceeds with crowdfunding despite potential fallout from pandemic

Local box office emptying fast with spiking number of new COVID-19 cases

Fukuoka (Korea) Opened Aug. 27 Drama Directed by Chang Lu So-dam (Park So-dam) takes Je-moon (Yoon Je-moon) to Fukuoka to reconnect him with his long estranged friend Hae-hyo (Kwon Hae-hyo). The two men parted ways 28 years earlier after falling in love with the same woman. In Fukuoka, So-dam is able to communicate without speaking the same language, and understand people’s minds without talking to them. With this mysterious woman, the two men set off on a journey through their memories.

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda will take on his first Korean movie with top-tier actors Song Kang-ho, Bae Doo-na and Gang Dong-won, according to the film’s distributor CJ ENM. Tentatively titled “Broker,” the film is a drama about people involved with “baby boxes” -- temperature-controlled containers in which unwanted newborns are dropped off. The Japanese writer and director, well reputed for his portraits of families that reveal their complexities and re

People riding subways will want to keep a close eye on the destination information screens on subway trains and at stations for the next few weeks: The Seoul Metro International Subway Film Festival kicked off Monday, bringing short films to commuters through Sept. 18. The official slogan for this year’s festival, now in its 11th year, is “90 seconds, enjoy the subway!” “I hope many people using the subways can enjoy arts and culture by watching the super-short films,&

Director Zhang Lu talks about how actress Park So-dam’s character can communicate with anyone

An Old Lady (Korea) Opened Aug. 20 Drama Directed by Lim Sun-ae The elderly Hyo-jung (Ye Su-jeong) is sexually abused by a 29-year-old male nurse’s aide during physical therapy. When she reports the case to police, wary young officers wonder if she may be suffering from dementia. When no one seems to believe Hyo-jung, who has no family or friends, her roommate Dong-in (Ki Joo-bong) investigates the case and speaks to the suspect to persuade him to turn himself in. Moving On (Korea) Op

The South Korean action thriller "Deliver Us From Evil" has emerged as the most-watched film at the country's box office this summer, outpacing the performance of homegrown zombie apocalypse movie "Peninsula," data showed Thursday. The number of combined viewers for "Evil," starring Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae, reached 3.87 million as of early Wednesday, surpassing the 3.79 million aggregate tally for "Peninsula," according to the data by the Korean

Yoon Dan-bi wins Bright Future award at Rotterdam film fest for debut feature ‘Moving On’

The 22nd Seoul International Women’s Film Festival will take place Sept. 10-16 under the slogan “Mutual Gaze.” With the novel coronavirus spreading in the capital area at an alarming rate, organizers hosted an online press conference about the upcoming annual event on Tuesday. Stating the main themes of this year’s festival as “bold challenge” and “passionate engagement,” festival director Park Kwang-soo said, “We took the opportunity to

It is being touted as Korea’s first original space blockbuster, but “Space Sweepers” does not show glamorous heroes on cutting-edge spaceships saving the universe. Instead, you get space laborers collecting dangerous trash and fighting enemies in their struggle to survive. Ahead of the film’s release on Sept. 23, director Jo Sung-hee and cast members Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu and Yoo Hai-jin attended a preview press conference in Seoul on Tuesday. The even

As COVID-19 cases surge, the release of “The Golden Holiday,” which was scheduled to hit the screens Wednesday, has been delayed until further notice. The announcement came just two days before the scheduled premiere date, making it the first major film to have its release delayed since June. “As the social distancing level is raised and concern about infection clusters in our society rises, we decided that the release of a new movie and gathering audiences in theaters could