Dreaming the Past and the Possible Futures
In its 16th edition the festival organisers highlight friendship and solidarity, reconciliation and co-existence, as the shadow of the Cold War grows stronger
Launched in 2009, the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (DMZ Docs) has become known for programming innovative films which push the boundaries of documentary cinema. The name of the festival points towards the nearby borderland between South and North Korea – the demilitarised zone (DMZ) – where the first editions of the festival took place. Now relocated to Goyang – the satellite city of Seoul and one of the hubs of the Korean entertainment industry – the festival grew to be one of the institutions supporting the development of Asian documentary filmmaking.
In its 16th edition, DMZ Docs featured an international competition, Korean competition, Frontier competition dedicated to experimental filmmaking and sidebar programs such as Docufiction, Expanded and Essays. There were also three programs dedicated to the history and significance of documentary filmmaking – a retrospective of German experimental filmmaker and artist Heinz Emigholz, Chronicles of Solidarity focusing on cinema as a tool of activism and Modern Korea Cinema which featured a series of thematic found footage films. Each section resonated with the DMZ mission statement in which the festival organisers highlight friendship and solidarity, sharing, protection, reconciliation, and co-existence of human and non-human. As we experience a revival of the Cold War sentiments and increasingly tense relations between the North and the South Korea, the festival tries to go beyond the binary dynamics and focus on the shared environment. However, questions of politics – the past and its possible futures – hover over the DMZ Docs.
What drew my attention in this year’s DMZ program is the presence of found footage films re-edited from materials made by the state media during the rule of authoritarian regimes. Re-visiting archives of the state media and national television is part of a larger trend in documentary film production and festival programming. In May 2024, the Taiwan International Documentary Festival presented an audiovisual performance Jamming with the Archives during which 1950s and the 1960s newsreels were re-edited to music made by contemporary Taiwanese sound designers and musicians. At the DMZ I was happy to see Zuza Banasińska’s Grandmamauntsistercat which was included in the Docufiction section. The film; that premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam back in January 2024, is composed of re-edited footage from Polish educational and scientific films made between the 1950s and the early 1990s in Wytwórnia Filmów Oświatowych (Educational Film Studio). Most importantly, this year’s DMZ featured a whole section – Modern Korea Cinema – which gathered found footage films by various filmmakers working with archival materials made by the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) in the 1980s. They jointly presented and critically engaged with the images circulated in state media throughout the decade, marked by social upheavals and struggle against authoritarian rule of Major General Chun Doo-hwan who usurped the role of the president following the 1979 coup d’état of December 12th (12·12 Military Insurrection). Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law on 17th of May 1980, in response to the protests across the country organised by students and labour unions. In order to take control over the public opinion, Chun closed all the television stations except for the the KBS which was given large financial backing to produce high quality and big budget programs. The channel was to provide entertainment for the people and to discourage them from organising collective protests in public spaces.
The idea to revisit the footage made during this critical moment in the history of South Korea came from the staff of the KBS itself. In 2002 Lee Taewoong, a sports reporter, was given an assignment to re-edit the most memorable moments from games and competitions broadcasted by the KBS in the past. He gained access to the channel’s archive which was filled with VHS tape recordings. While working on the found footage film 88/18 (2018) about the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Lee Taewoong realised the richness of the footage, and his work expanded far beyond the sports section. He understood that the event had wide social, political and economic implications for South Korea, which was reflected in various programs. Lee proceeded with digitising the materials, invited other filmmakers to work with the footage and reflect on different aspects of Korean collective consciousness as projected in the mass media. The idea expanded into a project called Modern Korea Cinema. Interestingly, following its success on the KBS channel, other now defunct media corporations such as Nama-jinheung – a South Korean film production company that flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s – decided to open its vaults for Lee Taewoong.
Why are previously state-owned media corporations currently willing to lessen the restriction regarding the copyright of its footage? Firstly, the traditional television channels and film studios cannot compete with Netflix and other streaming platforms with regards to new series and programs. Secondly, the budget of the state media is largely based on media tax – for example in South Korea residents pay only 3800 Won (approximately 2,5 Euro) per month for the access to KBS. It cannot be compared to the hefty subscription fees for Netflix or Amazon Prime which allows the streaming platform to invest in big budget productions. However, the state media has what the online platforms lack – the history and the richness of archival footage collected throughout decades, since the introduction of television broadcasting in the 1950s. Moreover, as international film festivals like Busan IFF or Venice FF embrace Netflix or Amazon originals, others remain somewhat reserved towards welcoming streaming platforms into their programs. Instead, those festivals are more and more eager to showcase or commission video essays.
Two films from the Modern Korea Cinema series – The Age of Beasts (Jimseung) directed by Jeong Jaeun in 2021 and Choi Sangsik’s Korean Ghost Stories – ieodo (Jeonseorui Gohyang – Ieodo) from 1979 – were screened at the IFFR in 2022. At this year’s DMZ Docs the audience had the chance to see 5 films from the 4th season of the project which continues to air on the KBS. The section included: Korean Variety Hour (Hangugui sigan, dir. 2024, Lee Taewoong), Making of Korean Food (Hangugeumsik mandeulgi, 2024, dir. Youm Jisun), Close Encounters (1983 Mijiwaui jou, 2024, dir. Lee Eunkyu), Everybody had a Plan (Nuguegena gyehoegeun isseossda, 2024, dir. Han Seokgu), and KOREAN DREAM: the Nama-jinheung Mixtape (Korian deurim, 2024, dir. Lee Taewoong) selected also to take part in the Korean Competition section.
While Korean Variety Hour and Making of Korean Food reflect on how Koreans in the 1970s and the 1980s wished to present themselves to foreign audiences and define the national identity, Close Encounters and Everybody had a Plan turns inwards to look at South Korean strict anti-communism and family planning program, implemented as part of South Korea’s modernization efforts. KOREAN DREAM: the Nama-jinheung Mixtape is the most vast and ambitious endeavour. Lee assembles fragments from over 50 films made at the Nama-jinheung film studio spanning from Im Kwon-taek’s Three Generations of Men (Sanai samdae, 1969), to Kim Su-hyeong’s Mountain Strawberries (Santtalgi, 1982) which was the first erotic film made after the Korean censors began to be more lenient towards the scenes of violence and sex on screen in an attempt to distract the audiences from social and political issues.
Lee intertwines the footage from Nama-jinheung’s films with the KBS news. He juxtaposes fiction and reality, the footage of actors playing fictional roles and performing in the public sphere in real life, catering to the authoritarian regime of Chun Doo-hwan. Lee Taewoong focuses on dreamscapes filled with contradictions, scenes of abrupt violence following moments of utopian bliss. The filmmaker had to dig through an enormous amount of material which results in visual tropes – colours, movements, objects – being heavily overused. Ultimately, in KOREAN DREAM: the Nama-jinheung Mixtape Lee does not come to any conclusions. He showers the audience with images that Koreans saw repeatedly on television and cinema screens throughout the 1970s and the 1980s but does not provide information necessary for the outsider to grasp the significance of the footage.
Nevertheless, it does not mean that KOREAN DREAM: the Nama-jinheung Mixtape does not resonate with non-Korean audiences. The social upheavals, democratisation movements, martial laws imposed in the early 1980s not only in South Korea but also in Poland and several other countries around the world, all this translates into the universality of Modern Korea Cinema project. It calls for a reassessment of the Cold War in the 2020s as the ghosts of the 20th century authoritarianism rising from the (un)dead to take part in presidential or parliamentary elections around the world.
There is a necessity of revisiting the past and the collective imagination of a nation shaped by the mass media. At the same time, it is vital to actively observe what is happening around us. In my experience of the DMZ DOCS dreamscapes of KOREAN DREAM: the Nama-jinheung Mixtape resonated with the memory of the opening ceremony. It was the only event held in the cultural park close to the border with North Korea. When one of the artists performing on stage during the opening of the festival started to sing the Korean version of Le temps des cathédrales from the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, I couldn’t help but recall the times in which the PRC and the ROC in the 1950s were using megaphones and banners to send their politically opposite messages across the Taiwan strait. North Korea remained silent, closed off, largely absent from the discussions at the DMZ Docs, its screenings or the heated industry pitching sessions. Nevertheless, the past seen in the Modern Korea Cinema series seems so far away yet so close as the cultural institutions continue to shape the identity of a nation.
Maja Korbecka
Edited by Yael Shuv
© FIPRESCI 2024