Korean Film Council to hold special exhibition on women-focused films
A scene from Boo Ji-young's "Hello" (2018) / Courtesy of Indiestory
By Park Han-sol
Indie Ground, an organization established by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) to support the distribution of Korean independent films, will host a special online exhibition celebrating women-focused cinematic narratives this month.
“I'm Purplay-Indie” will be held in collaboration with over-the-top (OTT) platform
for two weeks from March 18 to 31. A total of 28 movies from Indie Ground's online library will be available for streaming to promote contemporary films revolving around diverse female-led narratives and recognize the long-overdue achievements of female filmmakers.
The selection includes “Hello” (2018) starring “Parasite” actor Lee Jung-eun, “The Monologue” (2018) directed by “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982” filmmaker Kim Do-young and “Dong-a” (2018) starring Shim Dal-gi from the charmingly bizarre Netflix series “The School Nurse Files.”
From super-short films to features, these movies will be divided into five unique categories ― The World We Make Today, Countless Moments of Growth, Be Brave, The Temperature of Condolences and Now, Here, Stranger.
An official poster for the online film exhibition "I'm Purplay-Indie" / Courtesy of Purplay
“Hello” centers on Jung-eun, who is responsible for taking care of her mother suffering from Alzheimer's, and an unexpected phone call she gets one day from North Korea. The voice on the other end of the line begs the protagonist to find her son who has defected to the South.
Despite its entirely impossible premise, the film is still a meticulous depiction of real life as it portrays the struggle-ridden life of a single middle-aged woman with a manual labor job and the emotional reality of Korea's division.
Its filmmaker Boo Ji-young also directed the award-winning “Cart” in 2014 that focuses on contract employees, most of whom are female, at a retail supermarket fighting against the management's unfair decision to carry out mass layoffs.
Kim Do-young's “The Monologue” is about stage actor Ji-yeon, whose career is cut short after the birth of her child. The three-hour-long time she gets for an acting audition one day is far from being a respite, and is instead filled with moments of dramatic ups and downs.
The rising actor Kang Mal-geum playing the lead role of Ji-yeon has also starred in “Lucky Chan-sil” (2020), a cinematic journey following a single unemployed female producer in her 40s and her take on Korea's patriarchal society.
Purplay, where the selection will be screened, is a streaming platform specializing in presenting the world of women's cinema. Launched in 2019, it aims to showcase women-centric narratives that have not been widely distributed in the current film market and has been recognized as the first social enterprise in the local OTT service industry this month.