Second film preservation center due by 2014

South Korea plans to establish a second site for preserving and restoring homegrown films by 2014, since the existing location in Seoul is already overflowing with materials, the national film archive said Friday.

The Korean Film Archive said during a news conference in Seoul that it will construct the second preservation center on land in the publishing town in Paju, some 50 kilometers northwest of Seoul, with a total budget of 33 billion won ($29 million).

Construction will begin next year and is scheduled for completion in 2014, it said.

The national archive currently holds 4,187 feature films that have been produced in South Korea so far in the existing preservation center located in the archive building in western Seoul. The new facility will be equipped with a film preservation vault, an archival processing facility, a small theater or a film library and an office.

The archive also said it plans to make some 70 Korean classic movies available on YouTube (www.youtube.com/koreanfilm) starting in May. The movies range from “A Hometown in Heart” (1949) by director Yun Yong-gyu to “The Day a Pig Fell in the Well” (1996) by director Hong Sang-soo. Google will help attach English subtitles to the movies, and seven of the 70 movies will be available in high definition.

(Yonhap)