Activism and Post-Activism. Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981-2022

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Korea Institute with support from the Kim Koo Foundation
 

These programs present an overview of Activism and Post-Activism: Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981-2022 (Oxford University Press, 2024), the first English-language monograph on Korean nonfiction film and video practices in the non-governmental and non-corporate sectors from their foundational period (early 1980s) to the present. Making tripartite connections between the sociopolitical history of Korea (from the 1980s mass anti-dictatorship movement to twenty-first century labor issues, Truth and Reconciliation, feminism, LGBT rights, environmental justice, and key events such as the Sewol Ferry disaster and the Candlelight Protests), documentary's aesthetics and politics, and the shifting institutional and technological evolution of documentary production and distribution, what is unique and particular about this forty-year history of Korean documentary cinema is the intensive and compressed co-evolution of activism (including social change documentaries aimed at engaging social movements in the form of alternative nonfiction media practice) and post-activism (a set of twenty-first-century documentaries whose formal and aesthetic experimentations gesture toward overcoming and renewing the activist tradition). – Kim Jihoon

Kim Jihoon is a Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Chung-Ang University. His second book, Documentary’s Expanded Fields: New Media and the Twenty-First-Century Documentary, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. He has edited a special issue on Korean popular cinema and television in the 21st century for the Journal of Popular Film and Television (Volume 47, Issue 1, 2019).

Film curation and descriptions by Kim Jihoon

Introduction by Chan Yong Bu, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Upcoming screenings from this program are listed below.

*Monday, February 3, 2025, 7:30PM 

Sanggyedong Olympic
Directed by Kim Dong-won.
South Korea, 1988, digital video, color, 27 min.
Korean with English subtitles.
Copy source: Cinemadal

Graeae: A Stationed Idea
Directed by Jeong Yeo-reum.
South Korea, 2020, digital video, color and b&w, 35 min.
Korean with English subtitles.
Copy source: Filmmaker

*Sunday, February 16, 2025 at 7PM

Labor News No. 1
Directed by Labor News Production.
South Korea, 1989, DCP, color, 73 min.
Korean with English subtitles.
DCP source: Labor News Production

melting icecream
Directed by Hong Jin-hwon.
South Korea, 2021, DCP, black & white, 70 min.
Korean with English subtitles.
DCP source: Cinemadal

Generously supported by the Kim Koo Foundation

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