'Great Legacy: Taeheung Film Company' 20 Films Including Nun and General's Son
Special Screening Until Next Month 5... Kim Dong-ho, Chairman of Gangneung Film Festival, Delivers Congratulatory Address
"Director Im Kwon-taek's global achievements laid the foundation for the Palme d'Or win of ‘Parasite (2019)’ at the Cannes International Film Festival."
These were the words conveyed by Kim Dong-ho, Chairman of the Gangneung International Film Festival. Director Im is a master of Korean cinema. He won the Best Director award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for ‘Chihwaseon’. In 2005, he also received the Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, becoming the first Asian filmmaker to do so. His unique expression of Korean sentiment through works such as ‘Aje Aje Bara Aje (1989)’, ‘Seopyeonje (1993)’, ‘Taebaek Mountains (1994)’, ‘Chunhyangjeon (2000)’, and ‘Low Life (2004)’ was highly praised. All these works share the commonality of being produced by Taeheung Film Company. They were completed as masterpieces under the exceptional insight of the late Lee Tae-won, former CEO of Taeheung Film Company.
A special screening event showcasing the outstanding directing and visual sensibility surrounding the works produced by Taeheung Film Company has been arranged. The Korean Film Archive is holding a special screening titled ‘Great Heritage: Taeheung Films 1984~2004’ at Cinematheque in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, until the 5th of next month. This event commemorates the late former CEO Lee Tae-won, who passed away last year, and honors Taeheung Film Company's contributions to the Korean film industry.
Chairman Kim, who is 85 years old this year, attended the opening ceremony on the 12th, delivering a congratulatory speech despite his fatigue. From the 7th to the 11th, he served as the chairman of the funeral committee for the late Kang Soo-yeon, leading the film industry funeral. He stayed with the deceased until the remains were interred at Yongin Public Cemetery. Bang Choong-sik, Vice President of Taeheung Film Company, paid tribute to the late CEO Lee and Kang Soo-yeon and expressed gratitude to Chairman Kim. Vice President Bang said, "Meeting Chairman Kim Dong-ho makes me reflect deeply on meetings and farewells, and the principles of humanity," adding, "I dream that we live our best lives like the protagonists in the films we envision."
Following this, Chairman Kim took the podium and said, "This special screening has a retrospective nature due to the sudden passing of former CEO Lee Tae-won," recalling, "I attended the Moscow Film Festival together with Lee Tae-won for ‘Aje Aje Bara Aje’, and we also went to the Cannes Film Festival together." He continued, "This event is significant because it allows us to appreciate representative works of Korean film history from the 1980s and 1990s and to examine the process that laid the groundwork for globalization."
The screening includes about twenty films. Among them are ‘Bikuni’, which remained an unfinished founding work of Taeheung Film Company, as well as ‘Between the Knees (1984)’, ‘Ppong (1985)’, ‘Dream (1990)’, ‘General's Son (1990)’, ‘Hwaeomgyeong (1993)’, ‘Rose-Colored Life (1994)’, ‘Geumhong-ah Geumhong-ah (1995)’, and ‘Festival (1996)’. You can also see ‘Mimi and Cheolsu's Youth Sketch (1987)’ and ‘Aje Aje Bara Aje’, both featuring Kang Soo-yeon.
Chairman Kim stated, "These are works by directors who represented the Korean film industry," and confidently added, "You can understand how the global successes of Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong, and Bong Joon-ho were made possible." Kim Hong-jun, Director of the Korean Film Archive, also urged many to participate, saying, "Taeheung Film Company passed down the heritage of Korean cinema's past, and it itself is a great heritage."
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