Films From a Woman's Viewpoint
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Women's Film Festival in Seoul to Focus on Sex Trade, Teen Sexuality
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
An annual international film festival will celebrate its seventh year with a wider variety of films by and about women early next month in Sinchon, Seoul. This year it will try to especially shed light on the issues of female teenagers' sexuality and sex workers in Asian countries.
"The festival is enriched with more variety, with movies from such places as Greece, Africa and Czech Republic as well as more documentaries," Lee Hyae-kyoung, director of the Women's Film Festival in Seoul (WFFIS), said during a news conference on March 8.
Opening with "The Holy Girl" by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel on April 8, the festival will show about 90 movies from 27 different countries for eight days at Artreon Theater in northern Seoul.
As its slogan suggests _ "See the World Through Women's Eyes" _ the festival aims to give moviegoers a chance to see a variety of movies in each section and also provide them a rare opportunity to better understand the current issues women face through the movies and other events.
This year's festival consists of seven sections _ New Currents, Young Feminist Forum, Feminist Film and Video Activism, Focus on Vera Chytilova, Korean Cinema Retrospective, Turkish Cinema Panorama and Asian Short Film and Video Competition.
In the New Currents section, visitors can see movies by female directors from all over the world, which were produced in the past two years. A total of 30 feature, documentary and short animated films from 17 different countries portraying women's lives will meet local audiences.
The Young Feminist Forum section will show 11 films and documentaries that address the issue of teen sexuality and pregnancy.
"We collected various movies and documentaries which deal with all these radical issues of teenagers but present them from their own points of view," said Kwon Eun-sun, one of the programmers of the festival. "And through the section we hope to see more teenagers participating in the festival."
The section, Feminist Film and Video Activism, presents works by individuals or feminist groups depicting the real situations of prostitutes on workers across Asia. Most of them carry the voices of prostitutes and tell of their stories and experiences.
Regarding the issues, an international forum on sex trafficking will be also given on April 12, with activists and professors as well as women from the actual field, invited to speak.
A total of six works by Vera Chytilova, one of the leading figures in the Czech New Wave movement of the early 1960s, will be screened while seven representative works from Turkish cinema, which is comparatively unknown to local moviegoers, will be introduced in the Turkish Cinema Panorama section.
The Asian Short Film and Video Competition section, the only competition section of the festival, will choose the best short film among 14 domestic and four overseas films and screen it as the closing film for the festival on April 15.
The opening ceremony will begin at 6 p.m., April 8, at Artreon Theater. The screening schedule is available on the WFFIS' Web site. Tickets can be purchased on the Internet from March 28 or at the box office and range from 3,000 to 30,000 won. Most films will be shown with English subtitles or in English with Korean subtitles.
The Seventh Women's Film Festival in Seoul
When: April 8 through 15
Where: Artreon theater, near Sinchon station on subway line 2
How much: 3,000 to 30,000 won
Info: (02) 583-3598/9 or visit http://www.wffis.or.kr
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
An annual international film festival will celebrate its seventh year with a wider variety of films by and about women early next month in Sinchon, Seoul. This year it will try to especially shed light on the issues of female teenagers' sexuality and sex workers in Asian countries.
"The festival is enriched with more variety, with movies from such places as Greece, Africa and Czech Republic as well as more documentaries," Lee Hyae-kyoung, director of the Women's Film Festival in Seoul (WFFIS), said during a news conference on March 8.
Opening with "The Holy Girl" by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel on April 8, the festival will show about 90 movies from 27 different countries for eight days at Artreon Theater in northern Seoul.
As its slogan suggests _ "See the World Through Women's Eyes" _ the festival aims to give moviegoers a chance to see a variety of movies in each section and also provide them a rare opportunity to better understand the current issues women face through the movies and other events.
This year's festival consists of seven sections _ New Currents, Young Feminist Forum, Feminist Film and Video Activism, Focus on Vera Chytilova, Korean Cinema Retrospective, Turkish Cinema Panorama and Asian Short Film and Video Competition.
In the New Currents section, visitors can see movies by female directors from all over the world, which were produced in the past two years. A total of 30 feature, documentary and short animated films from 17 different countries portraying women's lives will meet local audiences.
The Young Feminist Forum section will show 11 films and documentaries that address the issue of teen sexuality and pregnancy.
"We collected various movies and documentaries which deal with all these radical issues of teenagers but present them from their own points of view," said Kwon Eun-sun, one of the programmers of the festival. "And through the section we hope to see more teenagers participating in the festival."
The section, Feminist Film and Video Activism, presents works by individuals or feminist groups depicting the real situations of prostitutes on workers across Asia. Most of them carry the voices of prostitutes and tell of their stories and experiences.
Regarding the issues, an international forum on sex trafficking will be also given on April 12, with activists and professors as well as women from the actual field, invited to speak.
A total of six works by Vera Chytilova, one of the leading figures in the Czech New Wave movement of the early 1960s, will be screened while seven representative works from Turkish cinema, which is comparatively unknown to local moviegoers, will be introduced in the Turkish Cinema Panorama section.
The Asian Short Film and Video Competition section, the only competition section of the festival, will choose the best short film among 14 domestic and four overseas films and screen it as the closing film for the festival on April 15.
The opening ceremony will begin at 6 p.m., April 8, at Artreon Theater. The screening schedule is available on the WFFIS' Web site. Tickets can be purchased on the Internet from March 28 or at the box office and range from 3,000 to 30,000 won. Most films will be shown with English subtitles or in English with Korean subtitles.
The Seventh Women's Film Festival in Seoul
When: April 8 through 15
Where: Artreon theater, near Sinchon station on subway line 2
How much: 3,000 to 30,000 won
Info: (02) 583-3598/9 or visit http://www.wffis.or.kr
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