The Korean Film Festival in Australia Returns

By Travis Johnson

Now in its 7th year, the  Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA)  is headed our way, hitting six major cities across Asutralia with a concentrated dose of top-notch Korean cinema.

Over the past decade or so, the Korean film industry has risen to become one of the most creative and downright coolest content hubs in the world, giving us incredible work from the likes of Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) and Bong-joon Ho (Snowpiercer). KOFFIA is your chance to see the next great films coming out of the peninsula ahead of the pack.

Highlights of the 20 films on the program this year include:

Alice in Earnestland (dir. Ahn Gooc-jin): A dark satire which sees a desperate housewife (singer Lee Jeong-Hyun) turns to ever more outrageous and violent options as he attempts to stave off destitution arising from her comatose husband’s medical bills.

Train to Busan (dir. Yeon Sang-ho): A father and his estranged daughter are trapped on a bullet train during a zombie apocalypse.

Two Rooms, Two Nights (dir. David Cho): A film director attempts to keep his affair with a scriptwriter a secret from his long term girlfriend.

Assassination (dir. Choi Dong-hoon): A ragtag team of rebels and criminals attempts to assassinate the Governor-General during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

Definitely worth checking out is the silent film, Crossroads of Youth. Presented with a full live band, actors and dancer, and a narrator live in the theatre, it’s a tale of star-crossed tens set in 1934 Korea at the dawn of the nation’s push towards modernisation.

KOFFIA runs at Sydney’s Event Cinemas George Street August 10 – 18; Brisbanes Event Cinemas Myer Centre August 23 – 29; Melbourne’s ACMI September 1 – 8; Canberra’s Palace electric Cinema September 3 – 4:
Adelaide’s Palace Cinemas Eastend September 15 – 18; and Perth’s Event Cinemas Innaloo September 22 – 25.

For more info, head to the official site.