The Event Will Run From September 4 to 10 in Budapest
The Hungary Korean Film will be held from September 4 to 10 at the Corvin Cinema in Budapest, Hungary. The festival, which is celebrating its 13th anniversary this year, will open with the film that was the most talked-about title in Korea last year, LEE Byoung-heon’s Extreme Job.
The Hungary Korean Film Festival started modestly in 2008, when it was called Korean Cinema Week, but has grown into the biggest Korean film festival in East-Central Europe, as the response from the public has been very positive with over 80% seats filled every year.
The Koreai Filmfesytival, as it is called in Hungarian, is comprised of the Friss Szekcio (Fresh Section) which presents mainstream films that dominated the conversation during the past year, the Arcok Szekcio (Faces Section), a retrospective dedicated to a filmmaker or actor, the Fokusz Szekcio (Focus Section), which revolves around a specific topic, and the Extra Szekcio (Extra Section), which presents films selected by a guest film critic.
MOON So-ri, the actress who made a mark in Korean film history, will be in the spotlight in this year’s Arcok Szekcio with screenings of her films The Running Actress (2017) (which she also directed), Hahaha (2010), Little Forest (2018), and Juror 8 (2019), while the Extra Szekcio will feature works by up-and-coming directors of the next generation of Korean films selected by critic and Korean cinema programmer for the Busan International Film Festival JUNG Han-seok. The films invited to this section are Moving On by YUN Dan-bi, The Education (2019) by KIM Duk-joong, The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin (2019) by KIM Dong-ryung and PARK Kyoung-tae, and The Hill of Wind by PARK Suk-young. Also, the Fokusz Szekcio, whose topic this year will be the position of women in Korean society, will showcase Kim Bora’s House of Hummingbird (2019), KIM Do-young’s KIM JI-YOUNG, BORN 1982, HAN Ka-ram’s Our Body (2019), and LIM Dae-hyung’s Moonlit Winter (2019). 1987: When the Day Comes (2017), which caused the greatest sensation upon its screening in last year’s edition of the festival, will be screened again as a Bonusz screening. In addition, a panel discussion with literary critics and Korean film specialists will be held on the subject of KIM JI-YOUNG, BORN 1982, the novel the film is based on, which has been published in Hungarian.
In view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the film festival announced, “We will block off seats in a zigzag pattern and give masks featuring the Hungarian Korean Film Festival logo to all spectators.” They added, “We are considering offering online screenings later on since we are concerned that reducing by half the number of seats available will decrease the opportunities for people to watch the films.”