FORUM BIFF

It has been one of the core missions for BIFF to create a platform dedicated to profound discussion. The Forum BIFF, newly introduced event this year, hopes to succeed and reinforce such tradition. It hosts Korean Cinema’s 100th Anniversary Forum and South/Southeast Asian Cinema Forum bringing together filmmakers, scholars and critics from all over the world. It also offers a wide range of sessions organized by diverse film organizations. Audiences at BIFF will enjoy the opportunity to gain a wealth of knowledge about films and communicate with each other.

Korean Cinema Forum

Reception and Practice of Early Cinema in East Asia

On October 9th, the theme of ‘Reception and Practice of Early Cinema in East Asia’ is going to be explored through comparative research on film history of China, Japan and Korea. This forum is co-organized by the Korean Film Archive to shed light on the first 30 years of Korean Cinema in a new perspective. Instead of the positivist debate on the origin of Korean film, various ways of accepting western films and local practices of filmmaking will be investigated. This forum will be meaningful in that it will be recorded as the first academic conference which analyzes the early filmmaking of three northeast Asian countries with the comparative method.

Cracks and Creation: Korean Cinema 100 Years

‘Cracks and Creation: Korean Cinema 100 Years’ forum is held from October 10th – 11th to reflect the various aspects of Korean Cinema over the past 100 years, especially focusing on its rupture, collapse and vacuum. On the first day, starting with a keynote speech by a renowned Korean director, Lee Chang-dong, this forum introspects cracks in Korean film historiography, impacts caused by film movements and spectatorship which is rapidly changing. The next day, it deals with ruptures in the patriarchal cinema culture triggered by cine-feminism, catastrophic imagination of the recent Korean cinema, cracks and margins in nationality that has been one of the most dominant factor in Korean Film and finally North Korean cinema as vacuum of national cinema history. The most outstanding scholars who major in Korean film will be invited to this forum and the insight offered by them will make it one of the most intellectually plentiful forums for Korean cinema ever held.

Asian Cinema Forum

Gender/Sexuality as Esthetic Impetus in South and Southeast Asian Cinema

On October 9th, Asian Cinema forum explores how gender and sexuality has been functioning as a resource of creation under oppressive socio-cultural conditions in South and Southeast Asian cinema. The first session is accompanied by the Special Program in Focus: ‘Gaze and Memories – Asia’s Leading Women Filmmakers. As Difa Mehta(India), Yasmin Ahmad(Malaysia) and Trinh T. Minh-ha(Vietnam) are named as‘female auteur’, the forum reconsiders their female auteurism focusing on how it could be established under distinct regional characteristics of their homelands. The second session deals with alternative queerness constructed by Southeast Asian queer cinema through native culture and transnational media environment. In particular, the keynote speech done by film director and women's studies scholar, Trinh T. Minh-ha will make the forum more meaningful.

Film Technology / Industry / Policy Forum

(Film T.I.P. Forum)

1919-2019 Korean Film 100 Years holds a policy forum to establish the National Korean Film Museum for commemorating the past of Korean film and looking to the future. Federation of Korea Movie Workers’ Union will discuss how to build safer and healthier production environment for movie workers in an open forum regarding a research on the Safety Status of Korean Movie Industry. Producers Guild of Korea is preparing a forum on issues occurred at the filmmaking site that varies by different types of occupation and situation. Cinematographers Guild of Korea hosts a forum on promoting the discovery of women power in technology and finding cinematographers’ narratives which have long been hidden. A masterclass workshop about the coexistence of film and digital media will be co-organized by Korean Film Council, Korea Film Directors Society, Korea Society of Cinematographers, and Korea Film Lighting Directors Society. Dankook University's Graduate School of Cinematic Contents holds an international forum on the boundary-free evolution of Virtual Reality films to explore the convergence of technology and films. Besides, a number of discussions on films in various forums will flourish throughout the festival period.