1st Cinema Digital Seoul Fest Wraps with Awards

The inaugural edition of the Cinema Digital Seoul festival (CinDi) came to a close after a weeklong run July 20 – 27. The event screened 40 innovative digital features, of which 20 films from 9 Asian countries were in competition for the fest’s two main awards. The Director’s Award, worth US$32 000 and selected by an international jury of film directors (this year: Lav Diaz, Bahman Ghobadi, Hur Jin-ho, Suwa Nobuhiro and D.P. CHUNG Chung-hoon) was shared by two films, Malaysian feature The Elephant and the Sea (2007) by Woo Ming Jin and Chinese documentary The Last Lumberjacks (2006) by Yu Guangyi.

In a surprise consensus, a separate jury of 5 international critics handed out the fest’s other main prize, the Critic’s Award, to the same two films. Both juries gave an honorable mention to Wang Bing’s Fengming, A Chinese Memoir (2007, China), which won the Young Critic's Award. Lost in Tokyo by Ikawa Kotaro (2006, Japan) received the Audience Award.

The opening film was David Lynch’s 3-hour DV epic The Inland Empire. Veteran Korean filmmaker IM Kwon-taek made a speech at the opening reception, saying “I have led a long career as a director, but I do not know anything about digital film. It's a genre that I feel I must learn.”

Korean competition titles were Digi-beta drama, after (2006) by CHOI Yong-suk and a re-edited version of documentary People Crossing the River: From the Tama River to the Imjin River (2007) by KIM Duk Chul. Korean documentary Mudang: Reconciliation Between the Living and the Dead by PARK Ki-bok and commercial feature I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, by PARK Chan-wook. The latter film was the first Korean feature shot on the Thomson Viper HD camera. A ‘digital lesson’ workshop, by PARK’s cinematographer JEONG Jeong-hoon , was given on the Viper during the festival.

Nigel D’Sa (KOFIC)

Source : http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/