Film Screening: “Faces of Seoul” (Gina Kim, 2009) + virtual Q&A w/ filmmaker
Gina Kim (Film, TV, and Digital Media, UCLA)
Faces of Seoul
(Gina Kim, 2009, 93 min, South Korea and USA, Korean and English w/English subtitles, Digital)
-- Virtual Q&A to follow with director Gina Kim
Mark your calendar for a related event, “Embodied Cinema of Gina Kim,” on Friday, April 11.
About the film
Faces of Seoul is filmmaker Gina Kim’s unique documentary, at once a portrait of an Asian capital and a film essay of a transforming Seoul. The film is taken from the intimate perspective of both an ex local and expatriate, whose knowledge of the city is neither contemporary nor irrelevant.
Faces of Seoul loops its audiences through the ever-changing modern metropolis, from the Seodaemun Prison to the blooming cherry blossoms in a verdant park, from a neighborhood occupied with American soldiers to a parade of Buddhists marching through the streets.
In each of these spaces, Gina Kim explores the city she so fondly remembers, reconciling the reality of her memories with that which moves right in front of her. By doing so, Faces of Seoul reveals Korea’s capital as a dynamic place where these opposing concepts--language vs. image, tradition vs. modern, native knowledge vs. exotic encounters—overlap and move against one another, none yielding to a single dominant perspective.
Critics' notes:
“A beautiful and intimate Tour of Seoul. Compelling Visual essay of the director's memories and emotions.” – Sun-jung Kim, Curator, Co-Artistic Director Gwangju Biennale 2012
”Faces of Seoul unearths multiple layers of the city's archeology, exposing the turbulent history of modern Korea through the intimate eye of the filmmaker. “ – Carter Eckert, Professor, Dept of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
About the filmmaker:
Los Angeles-based Gina Kim is a South Korean filmmaker whose award-winning films reimagine cinematic storytelling across different genres and platforms, developing a unique transnational perspective centered on female protagonists. Kim’s five feature films and works of media art have screened at over 150 prestigious international film festivals and venues such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Sundance, as well as MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and the Smithsonian.
Kim’s films have been theatrically released to critical acclaim in Europe, Asia, and the US. Praised by Le Figaro as a “fearless feminist who conceals an extreme sensitivity,” Kim’s Invisible Light (2003) was selected as one of the 10 best films of 2003 by Film Comment. Never Forever (2007), starring Jung-woo Ha and Vera Farmiga, was the first co-production between the United States and South Korea. Final Recipe (2014), starring Michelle Yeoh and Henry Lau, was wide-released in China in more than three thousand theaters.
As an academic, Kim was the first Asian woman in her department at Harvard, and is now a professor at UCLA in the department of Film, TV, and Digital Media. In 2019, Kim’s retrospective titled “Desire and Diaspora” was held at Neues Asiatisches Kino in Munich, Germany.