Unexpected Alliances: Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea [Hardcover ed.] 0804783616, 9780804783613

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Unexpected Alliances

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Unexpected Alliances independent filmmakers, the state, a n d the film i n dust ry i n postau t hor ita r i a n south korea

Young-a Park

stanfor d u niversity pr ess stanfor d, califor nia EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2015 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Park, Young-a, author.   Unexpected alliances : independent filmmakers, the state, and the film industry in post-authoritarian South Korea / Young-a Park.   pages cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-0-8047-8361-3 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Independent films—Political aspects—Korea (South) 2. Independent filmmakers—Korea (South) 3. Motion picture industry—Korea (South) 4. Politics and culture—Korea (South) I. Title. PN1993.5.K6P37 2014 791.43095195—dc23 2014011924 ISBN 978-0-8047-9347-6 (electronic) EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

Copyright 2014. Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

For my parents, Yong-tae Park and Kyung-ja Lee

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix Note to Readers

xiii

Acronyms xv

Introduction

1

1. Film Activism: Cinema as Politics

25

2. Independent Film: Cultural Production under Postauthoritarian Conditions

48

3. Beating Titanic: Independent Filmmakers at the Helm of Cultural Nationalism

77

4. Transforming Activist Culture: Women Filmmakers and New Filmic Spaces

108

5. Film Festival Fever: The Circulation of Independent Films

137

Epilogue: New Cultural Spaces, New Sensibilities

163

Notes

171

Bibliography

181

Selected Filmography

193

Index

195

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Acknowledgments

Throughout my research and writing, I have been indebted to many individuals and organizations—some of whose names have been kept confidential—for their kindness and generosity. Special thanks go to Kim Dong-won, Kim Jin-yeol, Nam In-young, Nam Jong-sŏk, and Yi Ju-hun for accepting me into their work and lives. I cherish the longlasting friendships that were formed during my fieldwork. Major portions of this book are based on research I conducted when I was a graduate student at Harvard University. I am hugely indebted to Professors Steve Caton, Ted Bestor, and Kay Warren for their guidance. Steve has been a great intellectual inspiration for me for many years. I thank him for reading my draft while he was in Yemen during his sabbatical year. His insightful comments really pushed me to tie up many of the analytical loose threads during the last stage of my writing. Ted was a great supporter and a generous advisor who genuinely cared about my overall well-being. Kay was a steady anchor for this project from its very inception. I thank her for exemplifying the intellectual passion for engaging larger social and political issues. Michael Herzfeld, James (Woody) Watson, and Rubie Watson deserve special thanks for their support and generosity throughout my years in graduate school and beyond. I would like to express my sincere appreciation of my peers in the Anthropology Department at Harvard: Tahmima Anam, Manduhai Buyandelgeriyn, Aykan Erdemir, Nicole Newendorp, Ilay Ors Romain, Wen-Ching Sung, and Michelle Tisdel. They provided great friendship and support during the ups and downs of conducting research and writing. The broader Harvard graduate student community in Cambridge played a crucial part in my graduate student years. I especially cherish the friendship and moral support of Randall and Atsuko Short. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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x

acknowledgments

I also received invaluable institutional support as a postdoctoral fellow at Bentley University’s Valente Center for Arts and Sciences. Kindness and support shown by Chris Beneke, Jeff Gulati, Dominique Haughton, Ranjoo Herr, Anna Siomopulos, Christine Sorenson, and Cyrus Veeser made my time at Bentley memorable. I was particularly fortunate for the friendship of Christina Klein at Boston College, whom I invited to be a discussant for my presentation at Bentley. She has read and commented on parts of my book manuscript, and provided invaluable advice. Professor Nancy Abelmann deserves special recognition for being the best mentor a young scholar could ask for. She kindly accommodated me as the first Korea Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where I was embraced by a wonderful Korean studies community. Without her encouragement and constructive critique of my manuscript drafts, not to mention her expertise on Korea, my book project would not have matured into what it is now. I am also indebted to many colleagues at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. David Amor, Steven Cohn, Weihong Du, Nancy Eberhardt, Penny Gold, Maureen Mullinax, Gabrielle Raley, Michael Schneider, Shuyan Shipplett, Amy Singer, John Wagner, and Karen Kampwirth were wonderful and always encouraging colleagues. Students at Knox have a special place in my heart. Their intellectual curiosity helped me reflect on my research. My colleagues at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, have been extremely welcoming and inspiring: Patricio Abinales, Chizuko Allen, Barbara Andaya, Michael Aung-Thwin, Lonny Carlile, Joyce Chinen, Cathy Clayton, Monisha Dasgupta, Eric Harwit, Bob Huey, Yunghee Kim, Reginald Kwok, Vina Lanzona, Fred Lau, Sang-hyop Lee, Mary McDonald, Cynthia Ning, Stephen O’Harrow, Gay Satsuma, Miriam Sharma, Ned Shultz, Anna Stirr, and Andy Sutton. University of Hawaii’s Research Council awarded an Endowment for Humanities Summer Grant for the final research and writing of this book. The Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii provided critical assistance through a Min Kwan-Shik Faculty Enhancement Award. I especially thank Rob Delaney for helping me with the last round of copy editing. This work was supported by an Academy of Korean Studies (Korean Studies Promotion Service) Grant funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Education) (AKS-2007–CA-2001). The most crucial support EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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acknowledgments

xi

came from Professor Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University), who guided me through the intricate process of book publishing. As a grant awardee I was also able to receive insightful comments from Professor Hagen Koo (University of Hawaii). Professors Shin’s and Koo’s constructive and encouraging feedback marked a milestone in the development of this book and I am hugely indebted to them. I am also grateful to Stacy Wagner, Michelle Lipinski, Tim Roberts, and Richard Gunde at Stanford University Press for their critical help throughout the process. I truly appreciate their insight, patience, and support. The two anonymous reviewers gave invaluable comments which became crucial in guiding me through the last stages of my revisions. Other institutions that provided support, for which I am immensely grateful, include: the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (1997– 2002), which generously funded my studies throughout my early graduate years, pre-field research, and the main dissertation research; a Harvard Korea Institute Summer Grant (2003), and a Korea Foundation Graduate Fellowship (2004–2005), which supported additional field research and writing; and Knox College, which provided a Melon Foundation Research Grant and Summer Grants to pursue follow-up research. Permission to reprint my book chapter, “New Activist Cultural Production: Independent Filmmakers, the Post-authoritarian State, and New Capital Flows in South Korea,” which previously appeared in Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (Routledge, 2011), was granted by the publisher. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my parents, Yong-tae Park and Kyung-ja Lee. My parents instilled in me a passion for knowledge and adventure, and their trust in me always has been the source of great inspiration. I cannot thank enough my husband, John, who showed endless support and love. Without his encouragement, I could not have gathered the strength to finish this project. Lastly, I thank my daughter, Ji-hye, who literally stuck by me throughout my fieldwork and grew up with the manuscript revisions. She might not realize this yet, but she has given me endless motivation to become someone whom she can be proud of.

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Note to Readers

Following conventions in the literature on Korea, I use the McCuneReischauer system of romanization for Korean, except for words or names that have a distinctive orthography and are frequently transliterated in other ways. In transliterating Korean names, I follow the Korean practice and put the surname first. The intimate and private stories and histories of filmmakers, organizations, and films are crucial to explaining how the Korean film world works, but their identities warrant confidential treatment. Therefore, some of the names of my informants, organizations, and films are pseudonyms. In these instances, the names are marked with an asterisk when they appear for the first time. In this regard, this book adheres to anthropological conventions to protect informants’ confidentiality. However, due to the unique nature of the kind of research upon which this book is based, there are instances where the rule of anonymity has been modified: I have used the real names of informants who are public figures and who either have consented to the use of their names or whose privacy is not implicated. The names of places throughout this book are all real.

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Acronyms

AFMD CDMI KCTU KIFA* KTUC PIFF

Mingahyŏp (Association of Family Members for Democracy) Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Korean Independent Filmmakers Association Chŏnohyŏp (Korean Trade Union Congress); predecessor of the KCTU Pusan International Film Festival

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Unexpected Alliances

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Introduction

Since 1999 South Korean films have drawn roughly 40 to 60 percent of the Korean domestic box office, matching or often even surpassing Hollywood films in popularity. Before this period of success, from 1988 to 1998 the domestic market share of Korean films was only around 15 to 25 percent. It skyrocketed to 40 percent in 1999, and has stayed around the 50 percent mark since then, peaking at 64 percent in 2006.1 During the first half of 2013, the market share of Korean films reached 56.6 percent.2 This represents one of the highest rates of consumption of domestic films in the world. Since the late 1990s, the Korean film industry has become a successful poster child for various anti-Hollywood movements around the world. How did this “Korean film explosion,” a recent phenomenon, come about? This book examines the Korean film industry’s success story from the viewpoint of a group of unlikely social actors—Korean independent filmmakers. I say “unlikely” because the success of Korean cinema is usually attributed to film auteurs, who are credited with having created “New Korean Cinema”: innovative in style, socially engaged, yet widely appealing to the public.3 Although the mainly auteur-focused, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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2

introduction

text-based analyses (Choi 2010; Kyung Hyun Kim 2004, 2011) of the current New Korean Cinema have been immensely important in the study of the Korean film industry, I believe the discussions of new film institutions and spaces opened up by independent filmmakers are equally consequential in completing the story of the “Korean film explosion.” This book is an anthropological exploration of the social and political contexts in which this explosion of the late 1990s to mid-2000s occurred. In the literature, some attention has also been paid to the socio-political contexts of the rise of Korean films (Shim 2005, 2008; Shin and Stringer 2005; Paquet 2005, 2009), but this book is the first of its kind in its ethnographical investigation of the people and social webs that created this explosion. I argue that the explosion was a product of a wide range of new alliances among social actors. In this book, I present a case in which independent filmmakers played a key role in creating these critical alliances.

The “Korean Film Explosion” and New Alliances I left Korea in 1997 for graduate studies in the United States and missed the chance to experience in person the excitement surrounding the election of Kim Dae-jung, a former dissident and the first president elected as an oppositional party candidate since the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1948. Therefore, when I returned to Korea in 2000 to conduct my dissertation research at the Pusan International Film Festival, I was at once surprised and overwhelmed by the greatly transformed political atmosphere encapsulated in the festival. Korea was not the same place that I had left a couple of years before. When I wrote my dissertation prospectus in the United States, I had intended to research Korean film festival fans and their interest in art films as expressions of their cosmopolitan aspirations and upward social mobility. As I participated in the Pusan International Film Festival as a volunteer/interpreter in order to conduct my ethnographic research, however, I discovered more than a mesmerizing fan culture: an unexpected convergence of political energy and cultural fervor. At the center of such convergence stood minjuhwasede or the “democratic generation” filmmakers and cultural producers whose historical and political consciousness was largely EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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introduction

3

shaped during the 1980s radicalized student culture. As a member of this “democratic generation,” I was intrigued by the fresh intersections of postauthoritarian politics and culture. The following story presents my encounter with a newly formed social alliance at an emerging filmic space. On October 6, 2000, I was standing with other young volunteers, dressed in matching grey uniforms, at the opening ceremony of the fifth Pusan International Film Festival (hereinafter PIFF), which epitomized newly emergent film institutions/spaces. Pusan, a port city on the southern coast of Korea, became the focus of national attention when PIFF was being promoted as the “center of the Asian film industry.” The Pusan Yachting Center Outdoor Theater, the site of the opening ceremony, was on the waterfront, which made the film-watching experience at the festival “appealing and romantic,” a point emphasized by the local media, PIFF officials, and municipal authorities (PIFF 2000; Pusan Metropolitan City 2003b). Approximately 3,500 people filled the beautifully lit outdoor theater, gently stroked by the autumn breeze from the sea. The climax of the ceremony came when President Kim Dae-jung’s face was projected onto the huge screen in the outdoor theater, followed by a taped video message from the president. As part of Kim’s congratulatory on-screen remarks, he solemnly emphasized the importance of the Korean film industry as a “strategic national industry,” stating that “the film industry will be the most profitable sector in the twenty-first century.” As his words echoed throughout the jam-packed theater, the audience gave a prolonged standing ovation. His statement reminded me of an oft-quoted finding made by the Samsung Economic Research Center: “Profits generated by exporting 1.5 million Hyundai cars hardly match the profit the U.S. made from the movie Jurassic Park” (Kim Hong 1994). This observation, which I heard many times during my research, pointed to the public’s imagination of Korea’s place in the global economy: a strategic shift from a manufacturing stronghold to a nation at the forefront of information technology and the culture industry. President Kim called himself the munhwa taetongryŏng (culture president), alluding to the contrast between former presidents, who came from military backgrounds, and himself, a civilian leader. The Chinese character mun, as in munhwa, means “writing”; therefore, Kim’s sobriquet was meant to point out that he had once been a powerless civilian under military dictatorship, and would now rule by the letter of the law EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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4

introduction

Figure 1.  At the fifth Pusan International Film Festival opening ceremony, President Kim Dae-jung’s congratulatory speech is being televised. Photo by author.

(and, by extension, culture), and not by force. In addition to championing the pen over the sword, President Kim also promised to promote the cultural sector and artists who had suffered from strict state censorship and restrictions under the former regimes. This title of “culture president” took on a whole new meaning as Kim Dae-jung had to manage the financial-crisis–stricken economy. Starting in Thailand in July 1997, shortly before Kim took office, the Asian economy experienced a shockwave, affecting its currencies, stock markets, and other asset prices.4 In response to the financial crisis in Korea, the International Monetary Fund (IMF hereinafter) provided $57 billion to stabilize South Korea’s troubled economy (Byung-Kook Kim 2000: 35). The government under Kim’s leadership began emphasizing the profitability, and thus the importance, of the “culture industry” in the fight against the overall lethargy of the Korean economy. Pusan was not the only site of the so-called film festival fever (yǒnghwaje yǒlpung) that had been spreading in South Korea since 1996, the year the Pusan International Film Festival was launched. Until 1996 there were no international film festivals hosted in Korea that were put in such a grand national spotlight. Following the huge success of the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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introduction

5

first PIFF, eight prominent international film festivals were successfully launched in South Korea in 1997. Film festivals became a source of excitement both in the media and in the consciousness of Korean citizens. In 2000 PIFF drew 182,000 patrons, by which point it was featuring 211 “art films” from 55 countries during a nine-day span, claiming to have become one of the biggest film festivals in Asia.5 Film festivals in Korea have maintained and even increased their allure in the last two decades. Currently there are 28 film festivals hosted in Korea, 14 of which bill themselves as “international film festivals.”6 A Pusan local cynically noted that it looked as if South Korea’s cities and counties were replacing the “Hot Pepper Queen competitions” or “Apple Maid contests,” local beauty pageants to promote local produce, with “socalled international film festivals.” The craze with which Korean cities promoted their international film festivals instead of local produce was reported extensively by the media at the time. Many people I met expressed bewilderment over the sudden mushrooming of international film festivals hosted by local governments. Their bewilderment was often spiked by cynicism: “Success breeds imitators. But in places like Korea, imitators will spring up until everybody fails,” noted a PIFF staff member who had grown up in the United States and had worked in Hollywood. This kind of response was shared by the majority of the festival staff who were aware of the escalating competition. PIFF became a significant cultural event, and local and national politicians did their utmost to gain visibility by attending. In 2000, PIFF’s opening ceremony, for example, attracted Lee Hoi-chang, head of the conservative Grand National Party (Hannara Dang). As Lee made a grandiose entry into the outdoor theater where the ceremony was held, I noticed a large entourage trailing his every step. Lee’s entry created a scene that rivaled the film community’s walk on the red carpet, as he and his followers climbed the stairs to their second-floor VIP seats. Among the 3,500 film fans who came to see the opening film The Wrestlers, by Indian economist-turned-poet Buddhadeb Dasgupta, sat local politicians, bureaucrats, and central figures in the Grand National Party, in addition to a number of reporters and anxious festival staff. When Mayor Ahn, a prominent Grand National Party member, announced that the festival had officially begun, cheers filled the outdoor theater. Mayor Ahn also made a lengthy speech about Pusan’s many attractions and its four million welcoming citizens. The mayor did not forget to EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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6

introduction

express his appreciation of GNP leader Lee for attending the opening ceremony. What I subsequently observed at the film festival, however, suggested not just the national obsession with films, but also the seemingly unexpected alliance between many different social groups in manufacturing such a national obsession. At the opening ceremony, volunteers were holding hands, cordoned off along the red carpet to make room for the entry of mostly recognizable faces: national and international movie stars, film directors, politicians, and local bureaucrats. Camera flashes went off incessantly as fellow volunteers and I were struggling to hold back the photographers who pressed forward with their bodies and cameras to break through the “photo line.” Several times, however, people’s eyes turned from the well-known actresses clad in glittering gowns to people who were so casually dressed that they stood out from the rest of the guests. I noticed one man in his early thirties, dressed in a worn brown corduroy jacket and wrinkled khaki pants, carrying a large leather messenger bag that looked weathered. A volunteer standing next to me—a perceptive overseas Korean American woman who had flown in to take part in the festival—rolled her eyes and whispered, “That’s just too much.” She was shocked to see such a casually dressed man on the red carpet. Other spectators at this red carpet event kept clapping, obviously with diminished enthusiasm, as he and other occasional unknown and underdressed guests arrived. The man who violated the dress code was Bae Ho-yong*, a college classmate of mine. I knew him to be a devoted student activist talented in calligraphy and painting. These skills came in handy when writing radical political slogans and drawing stylized political graffiti, which became Ho-yong’s forte. I used to see Ho-yong in the college lobby, sweating over huge banners that seemed to diminish his already modest stature. From time to time, my brother—also a classmate of ours—would talk about Ho-yong. He had heard rumors that Ho-yong left the activist scene after graduation in the mid-1990s to join a documentary-film production outfit called the Uri Film Collective*. This happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, to some of the activists, translated into the collapse of an alternative political vision for South Korean society. Many activists altered their career paths, as niches for labor-movement-oriented activists were rapidly shrinking (Cho Haejoang 1994). Unlike other activism-oriented documentary film groups that were still struggling, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the Uri Film Collective was quite successful in transforming its identity. This group, which in the 1980s had produced newsreels for workers unions, was since 1995 producing “socially engaged” documentaries that circulated among film festivals, including PIFF. Uri had also received funding from the Korean Film Council for kineko, a costly process for transferring video to film. Some of its video documentaries—transferred to film and thus regarded as more prestigious—had been released at an art film house in Seoul before they were screened at the fifth PIFF. Hoyong’s appearance on the red carpet, when Kim Dae-jung was in office (1998–2003), was a reminder of the changing times, as well as a pleasant surprise for me: the works of independent filmmakers, such as those of Ho-yong and others whose political militancy had lost its currency after the onset of civilian rule and the collapse of the Soviet Union, were now shown at proliferating international film festivals. I recognized Ho-yong and other independent filmmakers at the film festival because I was familiar with several anti-state underground films they had produced in the 1980s and early 1990s. Their radical films addressed oppressive state violence and oppositional movements and were condemned by the state. In the past they were distributed only through social movement networks. But now, sanctioned public screenings were opening up new opportunities for viewership. I became intrigued by how the films produced by this group of filmmakers—repackaged as “independent filmmakers”—were being circulated and celebrated at PIFF, where national and local politics, film fans’ cosmopolitan aspirations, and the film industry intersected in complex ways. I latched onto this group of independent filmmakers, who operated under an umbrella advocacy group called the Korean Independent Filmmakers Association* (hereinafter KIFA), and this organization became the field site for my research. Over the course of that research, I realized that many of these one-time anti-state activists not only had gained freedom from the state, but had become influential actors recognized by the state, elite film institutions, and corporate sponsors. They entered a much more ambiguous institutional and cultural terrain as their films were circulated at film festivals, art houses, and galleries, catering to an emerging upper-middle-class audience. This book is based on the eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted at KIFA in Seoul, mostly between 2000 and 2005. Brief follow-up fieldwork was conducted in 2008, 2011, and 2013 for updates. I use KIFA as my entry EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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into understanding how this network of filmmakers opened up new institutional and cultural spaces for film production and consumption in postauthoritarian South Korea. My first encounter with KIFA made me ask, How do we conceptualize the complex interplay between the postauthoritarian state and the network of independent filmmakers (with their strong activist legacies) at these new sites of cultural production and consumption? As I conducted my research, I came to understand that these new cultural sites/spaces such as PIFF in which KIFA had a strong presence signaled a fundamental change in the nature of socially and politically engaged cultural production. In this book, I intend to deepen readers’ understanding of this transformation and invite readers to reflect on the new meaning of activism in South Korea. Furthermore, one of the important goals of this book is to discuss the role of activism and its cultural production in the sudden rise of the Korean film industry. But before I get to the point of discussing contemporary Korean film activism and film industry, let me first examine the historical context in which the practices and ideologies of film activism unfolded.

Political Transitions Recounting several thousand years of Korean history does not suit our purpose here. I will, however, start this summary of Korean political transitions with the fact that Korea has maintained relatively stable territorial borders accompanied by an enduring state bureaucracy and linguistic unity since the establishment of the United Shilla dynasty in the mid-seventh century.7 This aspect of Korean history is critical to understanding Korea’s strong cultural identity. And when this collective identity came under threat during the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean peninsula (1910–1945), it was mobilized into ethnic nationalist independence movements by various social groups in Korea and Korean exile communities. At the end of World War II, after defeating Japan, American and Soviet forces entered Korea and the Allies divided the country. Therefore, the collapse of Japanese colonial rule was not experienced as the kind of “independent future” many Koreans had long fought for. Concurrently, the leaders of independence movements with vastly different political orientations consolidated their power and became the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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founders of the two Korean states, one in the south and the other in the north, backed by the U.S. and USSR respectively. In 1948, the two Koreas were established as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the north and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south. In 1950, the Korean War broke out and lasted for three years, resulting in the total devastation of the land and a civilian death toll of more than two million (Cumings 1997: 290). The Korean War is often described by Koreans as a fratricidal conflict that was mainly instigated by foreign powers. After the war, South Korea became a beneficiary of international economic assistance, especially from the United States, which exerted a great deal of economic and military influence. The continuing American presence in Korea, both economic and military, has been perceived as a sign of an enduring neocolonial legacy, especially by revisionist historians and those who came of age during the radicalization of social movements in South Korea in the 1980s. Being cognizant of this historical consciousness will assist readers in fully appreciating the nationalist sentiments expressed in public protests in the late 1990s and the 2000s against Hollywood lobbyists who pushed for undermining and ultimately abolishing Korea’s protectionist film policies, which will be discussed in the chapters that follow. After the Korean War and until the early 1990s, South Korean history might well be portrayed with key words such as authoritarianism, state-driven developmentalism, and suppression of dissent. For readers who are unfamiliar with Korean history, the following summary might provide a useful context. I limit my discussion to political transitions that will come to light in the upcoming chapters. Rhee Syngman, who obtained a Ph.D. from Princeton, was elected the first president of ROK/South Korea in 1948. As an exiled activist during the Japanese colonial period, he had long been an advocate of Korean independence. However, he vastly diverged from other militant strands in the independence movement by focusing more on lobbying foreign governments through diplomatic channels. He came to power based on his conservative allies, a majority of whom were members of the landlord class and were pro-American. Rhee was successful in obtaining direct U.S. grants, which “accounted for five-sixths of all Korean imports” by the end of the 1950s (Cumings 1997: 306). Corruption under his twelve-year rule was widespread as was political oppression. Under Rhee’s administration a National Security Law (NSL) was EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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passed by the National Assembly in 1948. “Armed with the NSL, Rhee embarked on a campaign of anticommunist witch hunts. . . . All major organizations, including the military, the press, and educational institutions, were subjected to scrutiny and purge” (Eckert et al. 1990: 349). Due to the NSL’s ambiguity, the government was able to use it as a “political tool” to crush any oppositional voices (Eckert et al. 1990: 348). The public, already disheartened by continuing election fraud, became infuriated with the murder of a student protestor by the police in the spring of 1960. The protests that ensued culminated in mass struggles later called the April 19 Uprising, in which 130 students were killed and 1,000 wounded in Seoul alone (Eckert et al. 1990: 355). The legitimacy of the Rhee regime evaporated with the brutal suppression of the April 19 Uprising, and Rhee resigned and left for Hawaii by late April 1960. The public euphoria over his ousting was short-lived, however, since General Park Chung-hee seized control of the government through a coup d’état on May 16, 1961. The Park regime’s legacy is complex, because although student, labor, and free press movements came to a halt under his brutal authoritarian rule, the Korean economy took off. When Park took office, Korea’s annual per capita income was less than $100; during his tenure it grew twentyfold. However, this economic growth, often dubbed the “Miracle of the Han River,” was built on maintaining low wages for industrial workers. Corporations, which grew exceptionally large under Park’s rule, often achieved this by brutally suppressing labor activism and political mobilization with the full assistance of the authoritarian state. However, Park’s grip on Korea did not last forever. Park Chung-hee was assassinated by his right hand man, the Korean National Security Agency director Kim Jae-kyu, on October 26, 1979. The assassination was welcomed by political dissidents who had protested Park’s Yushin Reforms, an intensified and institutionalized form of military dictatorship enacted toward the latter part of his regime. The period following Park’s assassination, often called “the Seoul Spring,” however, was cut short by Major General Chun Doo-hwan’s coup d’état and the bloody repression of the Kwangju Uprising (1980) in which approximately five hundred citizens demanding the repeal of martial law were brutally killed by elite paratroopers, allegedly with the endorsement of the U.S. government.8 The Kwangju Massacre marked a watershed in Korean history as it became a crucial turning point in the Korean public’s view of the American government. Eckert et al. (1990) EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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note that many student activists believed that the United States played a major role in Chun’s seizure of power by approving Chun’s dispatch of troops to the city of Kwangju. Eckert and his coauthors, however, add that “although a 1978 agreement creating the U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea) Combined Forces Command gave operational control of selected units of the ROK regular army to the commander of American forces in South Korea, there is no evidence that the U.S. conspired with or directly supported Chun during this period, and the dispatch of the savage paratroopers who provoked the Kwangju Incident was outside the operational control of the US forces, a fact generally unknown or ignored by the students” (Eckert et al. 1990: 379). In contrast to this viewpoint, historian Bruce Cumings rightfully asks, “The United States maintained operational control of the ROK Army; Chun violated the agreements of the joint command twice, in December 1979 and May 1980: why did the United States not act against those violations? With his service in the Vietnam War and his position as chief of Korean military intelligence in 1979, Chun had to have a thick network of ties with American counterparts: had they stayed his hand, or did they even try? Above all, why did President Reagan invite this person to the White House and spend the early 1980s providing him with so many visible signs of support?” (Cumings 1997: 384–85). This recurring theme of anti-American sentiment in Korean politics is worthy of attention. As it was with the American “occupation” of southern Korea after World War II, the alleged American involvement in the Kwangju Massacre largely shaped how Koreans viewed the enduring American influence in the peninsula. Koreans’ shifting view of the United States is relevant to understanding the discussions of anti-Hollywood movements that will follow in the chapters of this book. Chun Doo-hwan’s attempt to hand power to his long-time friend Roh Tae-woo in 1987 was met with heightened resistance, which led to Roh’s announcement that he would accept a direct presidential election, one of the main demands the Korean public made in a series of mass protests later called the June Uprising. The successful mobilization of the public was an outcome of a better organized social movement and the general public’s discontent with the ongoing military dictatorship since 1961. How does film figure in this broader political landscape? In the 1980s and early 1990s, activist filmmakers used film as a means of bringing about radical social change, declaring their film projectors “guns EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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shooting 24 bullets a second,” a conscious reference to Argentine guerilla filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (Seoul Film Collective 1983, 1985; Yi and Yi 1994; for the original quote, see Solanas and Getino 1976). In the 1980s and early 1990s, this group of filmmakers, who identified themselves as yŏnghwa undonga (film activists), was tightly connected to the Korean minjung (popular masses) movement, especially a sector of the movement called minjung munhwa undong (masses’ cultural movement) (see Chapter 1 for a detailed account of the complex relationship between film activism and the minjung cultural movement). People who subscribed to yŏnghwa undong (film activism) used the film medium to fight political oppression and the colonial legacy embedded in the mass media and Korean society as a whole. Throughout the 1980s, filmmaker activists’ films and videos were distributed to labor unions, peasant associations, and student movement organizations, and were shown at mass political demonstrations. These films were meant to mobilize the public. The weakening of political radicalism in the post–Cold War global order and the election of Kim Young-sam (in office 1993–1998), a new civilian president after thirty years of military dictatorship, signaled a new era in South Korea. Set in this historical context, alternative spaces—that is, outside the state-controlled film industry—for film production and consumption created by activist filmmakers in the 1980s shrank as the appeal of political radicalism diminished. In 1997, however, the election of Kim Dae-jung, the first democratically elected president from an oppositional party, altered the political atmosphere. President Kim, a symbol of the democracy movement under three decades of military dictatorship, gave new meaning to the legacy of the 1980s social movement and its participants. Media reports in 2000 extensively covered the efforts of Kim Dae-jung and his kukminŭijŏngbu (people’s government) to restore the honor of the victims of the repression of past democratic movements. Some nine thousand people were officially recognized as “pro-democracy fighters” and victims of past military regime. Throughout that watershed year, this “rectification of the past” was extended to the rhetoric of the “democratic generation” or the “3-8-6 generation” in the political and cultural arena as “agents of change” under the postauthoritarian state. The term “3-8-6 generation” was coined in the late 1990s by the media to describe people who were in their 30s, hence the 3; entered college EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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in the 1980s, hence the 8; and were born in the 1960s, hence the 6. The term generally refers to people whose political consciousness was shaped in the 1980s radical political environment discussed earlier. South Korea’s accelerated modernization, propelled by a strong military-state initiative, turned out to be flawed as the Korean economy and society seemed to be crumbling in front of people’s eyes during the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Kim Dae-jung’s government foregrounded the 3-8-6 generation as an agent to carry out its postauthoritarian/reform agenda while under enormous trade-liberalization pressure after the financial crisis and subsequent intervention from the IMF. Many Koreans regarded the IMF’s intervention as a threat to Korea’s sovereignty, and understood it as a foreign, especially American, attempt to subjugate Korea’s economy. The emergence of a postauthoritarian rhetoric coincided with the need of both the new administration and the public for a new model of modernity and development in response to a kind of a neocolonial governance represented by the IMF. In this book, I use the term “postauthoritarian” (or “reform”) to refer to the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations’ conscious efforts to mobilize the 3-8-6 generation to heights never achieved previously. The administrations that came after 1987 can all be described as “postauthoritarian” in that 1987 is often seen as a watershed year marking the peaceful transition from a military regime to a democratically elected government. No political leader, however, had appropriated the discourse of the redemption of the oppressed as did Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. This book focuses on this particular brand of postauthoritarianism. The narrative foregrounding the 3-8-6 generation was used in the Kim Dae-jung administration’s attempt to win the support of the public for its plans to restructure the Korean economy and society. As a result, many people who came from activist backgrounds entered governmental or took semi-governmental positions. In the Korean film sector especially, the reorganization of the existing film institutions and industry under the new political and economic environment resulted in the ascendance of filmmakers of the 3-8-6 generation. The 3-8-6 generation continued to retain its symbolic value under the subsequent Roh Moo-hyun administration (2003–2008). Reflecting on both social and political changes that I observed early in my research, I began to think about how the 3-8-6 generation narrative at the political level was also carried out in the emergent cultural EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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field—new film institutions and spaces, such as film festivals, art houses, state-sponsored film agencies, and anti-trade-liberalization protest sites in which independent filmmakers, whose leadership was often referred to as members of the 3-8-6 generation, gained a strong presence. This book is about the reconfiguration of activist/independent filmmaking networks in reform-era South Korea (under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations) and the emergence of the cultural field constituted through this reconfiguration. I especially focus on the emergent cultural field in the film sector, which exists as a nexus between the state, mainstream film industry, and social activism. This emergent cultural field reflects a foundational shift in South Korean society, especially in its cultural production, in that the rigid boundaries that separated the state and political activism, corporate conglomerates and independent artists, filmic spaces of resistance and spaces of upwardly mobile, middle-class consumption, and local and global cultural realms have become increasingly blurred. Now, I will shift the discussion to the main informants of my research.

Independent Filmmakers KIFA, an organization which in 2001 had about 250 members, encompassed thirty-five “individual members” (filmmakers and film producers who joined the association on an individual basis) and thirty-one “group members” (independent film groups, film houses, and film festivals that joined the association collectively). Nearly everyone in KIFA was in their early twenties to late thirties, with the exception of five members who were in their forties. Approximately 30 percent of KIFA participants were women—a number that was on the rise. In addition to these members who paid a membership fee, ten independent film festivals were also affiliated with KIFA (the names of these film festivals were listed on the KIFA website). Although these film festivals were not formal members, many of the festivals and KIFA had overlapping staff members who worked for the festivals during certain times of the year and at KIFA for the rest of the year. KIFA was established in September 1998 as a concerted response to the arrest of director Kim Dong-won (who later became KIFA’s first chairman) in June 1996 while he was filming North Korean prisoners of EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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war who had been incarcerated for long terms in South Korea. Unsurprisingly, the arrest of Kim, an iconic figure in the activist independent filmmakers’ circuit, provoked in many independent filmmakers a need to voice their concerns and grievances, and that need materialized in the launching of KIFA. The founding of KIFA, however, did not mark the very beginning of the organization of dissident filmmakers. Numerous organizations of activist filmmakers had existed since the early 1980s, and most of the leaders of KIFA-affiliated film groups had been involved in activist film organizations dating from that time. Some of the film groups at KIFA were actually established much earlier than KIFA. For instance, the film group of the earlier-mentioned Bae Ho-yong, the Uri Film Collective, which had the longest history, was founded in 1982. Purŭn Yŏngsang (Docu Purŭn), headed by director Kim Dong-won, was founded in 1991, and Labor News Production, which specialized in labor protest documentaries, was founded in 1989 (for detailed history of film activism of this period, see Seoul Visual Collective 1996, and the documentary On-line: An Inside View of Korean Independents [Seoul Visual Collective 1997]). Therefore, although KIFA, the largest umbrella advocacy group for independent filmmakers, became the entry point for my research, the scope of my inquiry goes beyond the study of this specific organization. Independent film groups, convened under the banner of KIFA, were mostly led by those whose political consciousness and aesthetics were largely shaped by their shared experience with the radical social movement and its spin-off movement—film activism—which had a much longer history than KIFA. Although KIFA was my main research site, my focus was not on KIFA itself as an organization, but rather on the network of people related to KIFA. Since I followed the KIFA people wherever they went, rather than sitting in the KIFA office, I observed and interviewed people whom I met through the KIFA members’ network. KIFA’s network enabled me to reach out to filmmakers of various orientations within the group as well as in the mainstream Korean film industry: 1) filmmakers who were involved in using films as a means to bring about radical social change in the 1980s and who still consider themselves film activists; 2) filmmakers who were active in the 1980s film movement but are not interested in any current activist agenda; 3) people who had no direct experience in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the 1980s social activism but for many reasons—personal, financial, strategic—convene under the banner of KIFA, but are interested in current activist agendas; 4) KIFA newcomers who share the characteristics of (3) but are not interested in activism of any sort. Of course, it is hard to consistently cast people with whom I worked into these four types. People’s current commitment and ideas change frequently, and the meaning of activism in the present moment in South Korea is multiple. To research KIFA and its network, I used a combination of participant observation, interviews, collection of life histories, documentary and library research. Ethnographic data collection involved engaged participant-observation at KIFA, accompanying the members of this organization while they conducted their routines in the following settings: yearly gatherings, weekly board meetings at the organization’s headquarters, individual meetings or gatherings with their co-producers or peers, and filmmaker workshops. In addition to participating in these routine activities, I became part of the organizing committee for a KIFA film festival which enabled me to observe how the venues were planned and organized. I also followed KIFA members who participated in other film festivals and observed their Q&A sessions and interactions with audiences. In addition, I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer translator at PIFF and through that gained insight into the relationship between KIFA and international film festivals. Therefore, I spent most of my time in Seoul, where KIFA was located, but also spent significant time accompanying members to screenings at numerous film festivals held in other South Korean cities, such as Pusan, Chŏnju, and Puchŏn. In addition to this network of filmmakers that has certain ties to film activism and/or current KIFA activities, I interviewed Film Council officials, film industry advocacy group administrators, art house or art film theater administrators, film festival programmers/administrators, organized fans/supporters of KIFA film groups, and film festival fans that KIFA members interacted with through various venues and activities. Therefore, my informants encompassed people who were loosely connected to KIFA’s members through “formal and informal networks” (Trotter and Schensul 1998: 711). Following KIFA’s network enabled me to reflect on the complex web of the Korean film industry and institutions from an initially marginal viewpoint. At the same time, KIFA served as a productive vantage point EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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for understanding the alternative practices of film production and consumption in the new cultural field.

R econcep t ua l i zi ng t h e Stat e , Activism, and the Film Industry In order to better understand the transformation of KIFA and the changing environment for activist cultural production, I draw on theories that reconceptualize the complex relationship between civil society and the state. KIFA and its social milieu are part of civil society, in the sense of civil society as “the realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of rules” (Diamond 1994: 5, quoted in Armstrong 2002: 2). The relationship between the strong state and civil society in South Korea has been characterized as extremely contentious under the authoritarian regimes (Koo 1993c). However, as South Korea transitioned to democracy starting in the late 1980s, scholars of Korean history and politics have called for the reconceptualization of this relationship (Armstrong 2002; Kim Ho-ki 1995, 1999; Sunhyuk Kim 2002). The following captures this call for change: The opposition between “state” and “society,” in which the latter was often conceptualized in the 1980s as the minjung or “popular masses,” is no longer a useful framework for understanding Korea today. In the era of postauthoritarian politics, the key dynamic lies not in the tension between the state and society as such, but in the increasingly complex and rapidly changing constellation of forces within, as well as between, the government and various kind of social groups. (Armstrong 2002: 2)

The Korean case has relevance in a comparative perspective, as scholars of social movements have looked at “how the boundary between civil society and the state often becomes blurred” (Alvarez et al. 1998: 18) in new democracies in Latin America and Asia (Alagappa 2004; Alvarez et al. 1998; Schild 1998; Slater 1998; Paley 2001). The social spaces in which civil society and the state interact lie beyond rigid categories, such as “the center” and “the margins” (Alvarez et al. 1998). In order to analyze these complex social spaces, scholars of Latin American social EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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movements argue for the usefulness of the concept of “social movement webs,” which “conveys the intricacy and precariousness of the manifold imbrications and ties established among movement organizations, individual participants, and other actors in civil and political society and the state” (Alvarez et al. 1998: 15). By applying this concept to the analysis of the entanglement between civil society and the state, these scholars examine the impact of movements as they gauge the extent to which the movements’ “demands, discourses, and practices circulate in weblike, capillary fashion (e.g., are deployed, adopted, appropriated, co-opted, or reconstructed, as the case may be) in larger institutional and cultural arenas” (Alvarez et al. 1998: 16). Sunhyuk Kim (2004) argues that South Korea does not fit into the general trajectory of democratic consolidation in which the locus of politics shifts from civil society to (party-based) political society. Although I do not agree with Kim’s view of Western democracy as a normative model for Korea, I share his observation that “as civil society bypasses the polarized, petrified, and problem-ridden political society, the principal locus of politics continues to consist of direct—sometimes conflictual, sometimes cooperative—interactions between civil society and the state” (2004: 160). It has been said that South Korean politics is made on the streets rather than in the parliament. The relationship between the film sector and the state examined in this book is precisely a case in point. We also observed such unique politics on the streets during the height of anti-American candlelight vigils in 2002 (Kang 2009), the anti-U.S.-beef demonstrations that swept the nation in 2008 (Kang 2008), and public protests criticizing the National Intelligence Service’s smear campaign against oppositional presidential candidates in 2013 (Choe 2013). During these ongoing street protests, I witnessed how the rhetoric—interpellation of the “democratic generation” as urgently needed agents of change—and protest repertoires of the past democracy movements often became foregrounded. Those who are familiar with the rhetoric of the 1980s democracy movement often use their symbolic capital, which they gained as the result of the deepened nexus between the postauthoritarian state and civil society under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. The political spaces that are created, however, are frequently not controlled by those who mobilize the past symbols. But without understanding the historically particular nexus which equipped them with social and EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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symbolic capital, our assessment of the present political configuration would be only partial. Especially under the Kim Dae-jung administration, the discourse of the 3-8-6 generation enacted and mobilized a prominent political rhetoric, and the generation’s network and symbolism became resources in accessing power. Following Nancy Abelmann, who pays attention to “the discursive production of social movements not as secondary concerns, but as constitutive of all activisms” (1997: 252), I closely trace the narrative production of the 3-8-6 generation in this book. I propose that the South Korean social movement’s social network and “discourse of moral privilege” (Namhee Lee 2005: 922–23) operated as “social and symbolic capital” (Bourdieu 1977, 1986, 1990, 1991) in the emergent cultural field under the postauthoritarian regime. The South Korean social movement’s “discourse of moral privilege” is constructed as follows: the Korean social movement during the 1980s represented a moral critique of Korean society and was framed in terms of moral righteousness. This ethical discourse enabled the agents within the movement to structure it as a counter–public sphere against the military regimes that “wronged history,” a relatively “safe” discourse considering the hegemonic anticommunist ideology at the time (Namhee Lee 2002). Students and intellectuals, active producers of this discourse, “persistently projected their future vision in the narrative of nation-state, portraying themselves as patriotic, nationalistic, and true inheritors of the nationalist legacy, seekers of truth uniquely endowed because of their purity, sincerity, and devotion” (Namhee Lee 2002: 136).9 Here, I use Bourdieu’s concepts of “social capital” (1986) and “symbolic capital” (1977, 1990, 1991) in analyzing the networks and symbolism of 1980s activism that were enacted as the 3-8-6 generation became a central term in politics and media, especially in the Kim Dae-jung era. “Social capital” is defined by Bourdieu as the “sum of the resources, actual and virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 119). “Symbolic capital” consists of the prestige and honor that become critical elements in reproducing the structure of social class (Jenkins 1992: 85). I have to note, however, that my use of Bourdieu comes with certain caveats. First, while Bourdieu’s examination of extra-economic factors EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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introduction

is tightly connected to the reproduction of social class, my use of his “social and symbolic capital” is about obtaining a certain social mobility that is not defined necessarily in terms of social class. For instance, the social actors that I describe in the following chapters obtain a forceful voice within the mainstream film industry, or gain access to power in cultural institutions, through their use of social and symbolic capital. This does not necessarily mean that they climb up the social class ladder, although it might entail class mobility. Second, for Bourdieu the types of extra-economic capital (social, cultural, and symbolic) are those that are inculcated and inscribed in bodies—thus, “unconscious dispositions towards practice”—and are not necessarily based on conscious calculations (Johnson 1993: 17). In contrast, my informants consciously made strategic use of their social, cultural, and symbolic capital. In short, in my case, people’s drawing on these forms of capital is performative and self-conscious. As the 3-8-6 generation was mobilized into the ranks of the Kim Daejung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, the moral authority of those who participated in the 1980s social movement began to emerge as an important form of symbolic capital, especially in cultural institutions. For instance, the pre–Kim Dae-jung–era officials of the Korean Film Promotion Committee (the predecessor of the current Film Council) were deemed “immoral” by the 3-8-6 generation members of KIFA— “parasites” of the former military regime, which subsidized the “morally corrupt” film industry. After the enactment of the Motion Picture Law under the Park Chung-hee administration, the film industry was under tight military control and film production companies produced films that promoted the military governments’ ideology (see Chapter 1). In critics’ eyes, the dependence on the military state implied moral bankruptcy. According to the head administrator of KIFA, the “movers and shakers” of the pre–Kim Dae-jung–era film industry sustained a legacy of “dictatorship patronage.” A former high-ranking official of the Korean Film Promotion Committee, a well-known actress who was one of the most powerful persons in the organization for several decades, often was rumored to have gained “special access” to congressmen of the previous ruling party through “inappropriate” relationships with them. Whether these salacious rumors were true or not is beyond the scope of my work, but it was clear to me that KIFA members expressed intense disdain—even disgust—mainly phrased in terms evocative of strong EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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reactions in private interactions with me: “moral bankruptcy,” “corruption,” and “immorality.” I will later examine in detail how the moral authority and social network of the 3-8-6 generation were deployed in the social spaces between the state and social activism in South Korea. Ganti (2012) argues that part of the “Bollywoodization” of Hindi cinema was about Hindi filmmakers accruement of cultural legitimacy through cultivation of a middle-class domestic audience. Although Ganti’s book and my book examine vastly different film traditions, I find many parallels in our works in terms of addressing the construction of legitimacy in both film industries. In this book, as I trace how KIFA members have mobilized their social and symbolic capital in accessing key positions of power in the reform-era administrations, I ask the following questions: How do we characterize these spaces of entanglement of the state and activism? Is the emergent symbiosis between KIFA and the burgeoning cultural realms in which KIFA has a market share an example of “co-optation”? Critics of KIFA often comment that it has been “co-opted” by the state, as if the word itself connotes condemnation. My book intends to shed light on the complexity of the “co-optors”’ ideologies and practices and examine their meanings and consequences. In an analysis that is particularly relevant to this book, Jesook Song (2009) examines the ambivalent relationship between “progressive social actors” (who politically came of age during the democratization process) and the Kim Dae-jung administration. She discusses how intellectuals and social workers, “many of whom were progressive actors . . . , unwittingly became rank-and-file engineers of an intensifying neoliberalism” during the 1997 financial crisis. Song argues that this is due to leftist intellectuals’ misleading separation between “good” liberalism—represented by liberal values such as political liberty—and “bad” liberalism (neoliberalism/market-centered liberalism). Song thinks that this separation is a fantasy and that in South Korea “leftist and progressive intellectuals in the democratized era, particularly during the crisis, found it difficult to distill liberal democratic ideas and actions from the structure of the market economy and private property” (2009: 123). To a large extent, Song and I are looking into the period of Korean history in which the government made a turn that is best described as both “democratic” and “neoliberal.” I do not believe, however, that the Korean left’s complicity in the state’s creation of neoliberal subjects is the whole story. In my ethnography, I try to portray a sense of opening and a space of resistance that emerged, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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introduction

even if they might seem fleeting at times. Song might argue that these new alternative spaces and sensibilities are only ephemeral as they ultimately serve “multiple coordinations behind capitalist production” (2009: 139), but I think it is worth capturing those moments that emerge from the contingent nature of the hegemonic structure and narrative. I also hope that my discussion in this book will add to the broader anthropological conversation on media industries and globalization. For the past few decades, anthropologists of media, informed by fieldwork, have looked closely into the cultural and historical patterns of media production, consumption, and interpretation (Askew and Wilk 2002; Dickey 1993, 1997; Ginsburg 1993, 1994; Ginsburg et al. 2002). Tyrrell points out that “theorization around cinema and globalization has largely been structured in terms of a basic opposition between Western commercial and cultural imperialist cinema, and Third World non-commercial, indigenous, politicised cinema” (1999: 260). But what about commercial, non-Western film industries? Tyrrell (2008) implies that film literature has overlooked commercial, nonWestern film industries, which do not register in this dichotomy. There is, however, a growing body of ethnographies on non-Western film and television industries and their consumption/subject construction (Abu-Lughod 1993, 1997, 2005; Armbrust 1996, 2000; Fischer 2004; Ganti 2002, 2012; Mankekar 1993, 1999; Rofel 1994; Sullivan 1993; Yang 2002). This book is deeply informed by this body of literature in that the South Korean case presents another counterpoint to the almighty power of Hollywoodization. My case, like others, illustrates how a nascent native film industry has claimed its space in an increasingly homogenized film environment in which Hollywood is dominant. Korea’s success, however, is based on the unique relationship between the commercial mainstream film industry and its noncommercial independent counterparts. The Korean film explosion cannot be explained without discussing the role of independent filmmakers who have transformed Korean film into a medium through which the Korean nation has been imagined. Such a semiotic transformation points to the unique “cult” qualities of Korean film. In this regard, contrary to Walter Benjamin’s (1969) argument about an artwork’s eroding aura and art’s disenchanted quality in the age of mass production of art, the sites of circulation for Korean independent films call for investigating the re-enchantment of media. Here, I find Christopher Pinney’s (2002) dialogue with Benjamin (1969) productive in analyzing how activist/ independent films have been consumed as rituals, not as film texts devoid EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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of aura: I draw on Pinney’s critique of Benjamin. Benjamin argues that the mass production of art erodes a work’s “aura” (“unique existence at the place where it happens to be”) as mass production of art “emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual” (quoted in Pinney 2002: 356). In contrast, Pinney argues that aura is not eradicated in mass production of images. Instead, he contends that the cult value of image springs from what people do with it, not from the idea of an original. With this insight, I examine how Korean films acquired ritual and cult qualities of different sorts from the 1980s to 2000s. I trace the process in which Korean independent filmmakers and their audience reenchanted the film medium. Not the film texts themselves but what these films provoke and evoke takes central stage in my analysis.

Orga n iz ation of the Book Chapter 1 provides historical background on the transition from the film activism of the 1980s and early 1990s to the new environment in which independent filmmakers produce and circulate their films. I present the story of Kim Dong-won, the chairman of KIFA, which parallels the transformation of the wider film activist community. The chapter then explores the process through which film activism opened up alternative ideologies and practices for film production and circulation in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 2 examines the emergence of “independent” film and KIFA’s negotiations with newfound contributors of capital (e.g., conglomerates and venture capitalists), the state, and new cultural venues. New cultural spaces where untrodden political sensibilities were expressed emerged as a result of such negotiations and compromises. I analyze how activist cultural production and consumption has been reconfigured in the postauthoritarian context. This chapter sets up a backdrop against which a new crop of independent filmmakers and their fresh narrative strategies have become visible. Chapter 3 examines independent filmmakers’ participation in the struggle to maintain the screen quota system (a protectionist film policy against the “Hollywood invasion”) in Korea.10 I explore the screen quota struggle as a critical event (Das 1995), a catalyst for the transformation of the independent filmmaker community from being marginal social dissidents in the 1980s to becoming a symbol of Korean cultural nationalism. KIFA members’ potent symbolic connection to the 3-8-6 generation EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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introduction

became the uniting trope of cultural nationalism; they portrayed the screen quota struggle as a legitimate offspring of the Korean social movement against American influence both political and cultural. This chapter picks up the themes explored in the discussion on the ideologies and practices of film activism (from Chapter 1), which became a cultural repertoire that KIFA members used for strategic political purposes. Chapter 4 expands the discussion of the changed “independent” environment and its new possibilities by examining the narratives of two female independent filmmakers. I look at how the postauthoritarian cultural environment—which resulted from the symbiosis between the KIFA leadership and the state—has created space for female independent filmmakers to contradict and challenge gendered activism and its representations. By critiquing and negotiating with the elite and maledominated activist filmmaking world, women filmmakers with distinct political and artistic sensibilities and visions have emerged. Chapter 5 analyzes the consumption and circulation of the works of independent filmmakers at Korea’s burgeoning international film festivals. New activist cultural production and consumption take place in the film festival venues created by the unprecedented alliances among the postauthoritarian state, new media capital, and the independent film circuit. And these venues, in turn, operate as platforms where festival audiences express their upwardly mobile class identity and individuality, which were not expressed through the consumption of either mainstream or traditional activist films. Here, the audience is an important element in understanding how activist cultural production and consumption have been reconfigured in Korea. The Epilogue comes back to the question probed throughout the book: Can the alliances in contemporary South Korea described throughout this book be characterized as the “co-optation” of social activism? This chapter argues that this characterization does not help us to fully grasp the complex practices of the putative co-optors, and further asserts that the relationship between power and resistance in contemporary Korea should be rethought. In the chapters ahead, I encourage readers to compare the agents, filmmaking practices, venues, and audiences of 1980s “activist films” with those of current independent films. Following such a trajectory will help us to understand not only current independent/alternative cultural production and consumption, but also the role of independent filmmakers in shaping Korean cultural landscapes. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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one

Film Activism Cinema as Politics

It is impossible to talk about Korean independent film without understanding its predecessor: film activism. This chapter takes readers through the formation and evolution of film activism: its ideologies, practices, and dilemmas in the 1980s and early 1990s, leading up to the emergence of independent filmmaking in the mid-1990s. Our analysis will help readers understand the genre, practitioners, and viewers of activist films. Special attention will be paid to the efforts to make activist film into a political medium that was uniquely anti-commercial and communal. Film activism was a radical movement in that the practitioners refused the mainstream model of producing films that were profit driven. It also rejected the mainstream model of film consumption, which assumed isolated individual spectators who passively sat in the darkness of the theater. In this regard, film activism was a movement that attempted to constitute totally different kinds filmmakers and viewers with agency that were distinct from their commodified counterparts. As I briefly discussed in the Introduction, the tension between disenchantment and re-enchantment is productive in analyzing the activist film production and consumption that I examine in this chapter. Christopher EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Pinney (2002) argues that it is hard to uphold Walter Benjamin’s assertion that mass reproduction of art destroys the ritual qualities of images. He discusses the way Indian villagers view mass-produced, chromolithographic images of Hindi religious figures, which denotes a different kind of visuality that is “tactile, embodied, engaged form of looking,” radically departing from the “paradigm of the disinterested, exterior, and objectified gaze that marks the dominant mode of Western visuality” (Ginsburg et al. 2002: 20–21). In agreement with his call for a departure from Western visuality, I believe that the complex production and consumption practices of Korea’s activist films transformed a disenchanted film medium into an enchanted medium of ritual quality: activist films in the 1980s and early 1990s were produced and consumed as political rituals, not as film texts without aura and ritual quality. Since the personal trajectory of Kim Dong-won, director and the first chairman of KIFA, parallels the transformation of a generation of activist filmmakers across the apex and decline of political radicalism, I use his story to illustrate the cultural landscape of film activism.

Di r ector K i m D ong-won Kim Dong-won has been often called the mathyŏng (the eldest brother) in the social movement circuit because he became one of the most prominent video activists with the production of his well-known documentary Sanggyedong Olympics (Sanggyedong ollimp’ik, 1988). He was born in 1955, in an upper-middle-class family in Seoul. His mother was a doctor, a rare career choice for women of her generation, and his family lived a comfortable life. Kim often told the story of his “sheltered” life growing up to accentuate the stark difference between his youth and later life: as a teenager he “experimented with drugs” and grew to love rock ’n’ roll music so much that he played in a band in high school. He attended Sŏkang University, an elite college in Seoul, where he studied communication. During his college years he became deeply moved by the work of radical Catholic social activists and became involved in a movement mobilizing the urban poor. While he was working as an assistant director for a respected mainstream filmmaker after graduate school in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Figure 2.  Kim Dong-won. Courtesy of Seong Hahoon.

communication studies, he made his first documentary about a poor urban area, Sanggyedong, in Seoul. His work was a representation of a destitute urban neighborhood being bulldozed as part of the “re-development” project in the state’s preparation for the 1988 Olympics. To erase the images of 1950s war-stricken Korea, prevalent in the Western media and mindset before the Olympics, the Korean government was dismantling impoverished hillside neighborhoods and relocating the residents to satellite cities or basement apartments in Seoul. This was, according to Kim, to render the residents “invisible.” The violence of the “eviction squad,” local gang members hired by the development agencies and endorsed by the state, shocked Kim and transformed his worldview. His video camera was passed around among the shantytown residents during the struggle, and the documentary was not credited to Kim but to the shantytown community as “directors/ producers.” The documentary chronicles the evicted families’ struggle to keep their homes, which in the end turned out to be unsuccessful. The shaky camera follows the residents as they confront the state-appointed EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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eviction gang’s thuggery and eventually search for new homes during the frigid winter after their eviction. The distinct stylistic feature of this documentary is that the subjects are filmed in long shots and the camera follows groups of indistinguishable shantytown residents. In fact, most of Kim’s earlier documentaries do not have main characters. This aesthetic decision has been interpreted by fellow KIFA members as Kim’s attempt to represent poor urban neighborhoods as “a community with a unified future and hope” (Nam and Yi 2003: 35). Since the production of Sanggyedong Olympics, which was widely circulated in the social movement network (hillside neighborhood residents themselves, Catholic activist groups, college campuses, and other civil movement organizations) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kim has been regarded as a “living history” of Korean independent filmmaking. As of December 2013, he has produced around twenty films (mostly documentaries) covering various social issues ranging from “comfort women,” or sex slaves during the World War II, to oppositional movements against the construction of a U.S. marine base on Cheju Island. His work has consistently and passionately dealt mainly with the struggle of the poor of Seoul, and he has been actively involved in that struggle, working with migrants from the countryside. Kim has been living among his documentary subjects and in a sense has become “one of them.” In describing him, some of his admirers stated that “he has gone native.” Kim’s documentaries on blighted urban neighborhoods, which were circulated among the documentary subjects themselves, have been characterized by film scholar Chris Berry as a “socially engaged mode of independent documentary film and video making” (2003: 139). Berry, who has written extensively on East Asian cinema, points out the moment of his revelation when he was watching another Kim Dong-won documentary, Another World We Are Making: HaengdangDong People 2 (Ttohanaŭi sesang, 1999). Berry characterizes Kim’s documentaries as a “particular independent documentary practice,” distinct from that of the Western independent documentary world he is familiar with. This film scholar has been involved in the creation of a global independent filmmakers’ network, connecting Asian independent filmmakers from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea with their Australian counterparts. While Berry was connecting both independent film worlds, he had not yet realized EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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“that although both sets of documentary makers are ‘independent,’ they are independent in quite different ways” (2003: 141). He contrasts these two modes of independent documentary making as the “commodity mode” and the “socially engaged mode”: The Australian independents are mostly engaged in commodity production, although often with the hope of furthering debate about important issues. They work with a linear sequence that takes them from the gathering of materials to the marketplace. They travel to meet with their subjects, make their films, edit them, and then sell them as commodities to television stations and any other buyers they might find. In contrast, as I (finally!) realized when I watched Another World We Are Making, Kim Dong-won’s documentary practice and the social movements he works with are committed to the construction of ‘another world’ not based primarily in the production of commodities. The primary audiences for Kim’s films are the subjects of the film itself, and they do not watch it as consumers. Rather, as is clear in the scenes in Another World We Are Making, the viewing of the documentary tapes is an occasion for gathering the community together, for reflection, and for further mobilization. (2003: 141)

Throughout Berry’s article, he argues that Kim’s socially engaged documentaries have actively constructed a “counter-public sphere,” or what he calls “forms of public space without universal pretensions and with radical possibilities” (2003: 140). Berry’s concept of the “socially engaged mode” is productive in analyzing how Kim’s work was consumed in the 1980s and early 1990s. I argue, however, that the concept of a “socially engaged mode”—conceived as the antithesis of the “commodity mode” in Berry’s sharp dichotomy—needs modification when applied to understanding how Kim’s documentaries have been consumed since the late 1990s. Kim’s documentaries are no longer circulated solely among his film subjects and activist networks. He has won many awards at major film festivals held in Korea, and a retrospective of his work was held in 2001 at an art house targeted at the upper-middle class in Seoul. His audience now cuts across social classes. In short, Kim has earned wider national and global recognition that goes beyond the immediate community he is involved in. Kim became a spokesperson for the Korean film industry as a whole during the anti-Hollywood protests in the late 1990s and played a EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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major role in reformist state-sponsored film institutions. He is occasionally featured in newspapers and magazines and became a professor at a prestigious film school in 2007. He was elected one of the fifty most powerful people in film—in 1999, 2001, and 2004—by Cine 21, a popular film magazine. His film Repatriation (Songhwan, 2003)—a moving account of North Korean POWs’ return to North Korea after several decades of imprisonment in South Korea—was also voted #1 on the “Ten Best Korean Films of the Past Decade (1995–2004)” list by a hundred Korean film critics and reporters (“The Top 10 Korean Films from 1995 to 2004,” Cine 21, April 20, 2005). Since 2001, retrospectives of his work have been held at art houses in the United States, and he has traveled to many universities in the U.S. In 2004, Repatriation was the first Korean film to win an award at the Sundance Film Festival. And there have been ongoing discussions between Kim and New York City’s Guggenheim Museum regarding a planned retrospective. This fame, however, does not mean that he has abandoned activism. As I have mentioned, his network and political influence have expanded far beyond the KIFA circle and his work transcends the intimate social movement community that he still is part of. Although his films are circulated at elite cultural institutions such as art houses and film festivals, he still lives in the same working-class neighborhood, occupying the same dilapidated office building, and aspiring to live the simple and frugal lifestyle exemplified by his documentary subjects. His intimate audience is still his neighbors—the shantytown activists and residents. The concerns that materialized in his work still represent progressive politics in many Koreans’ eyes. He continues to believe that “the world has not changed much” since he made his first documentary, and considers himself an activist filmmaker. The way he conveys his political sensibility, however, has changed: Repatriation is Kim’s only documentary in which he himself is a narrator. He reflectively recounts his very personal encounters with the POWs, some of whom he had “grown to love like his own father.” Before I examine the changing economic, social, and political environment in which Kim Dong-won and his KIFA peers make and circulate their films (in Chapter 2), I illustrate below the development of film activism from which Kim Dong-won and his peers—often called the 3-8-6 generation—emerged. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Film Activism and the minjung Cu lt u r a l Mov e m e n t In the 1980s and early 1990s, the movies film activists produced were not intended to be distributed through commercial theater chains, but instead were circulated in alternative distribution networks such as shantytown associations, labor unions, peasant associations, and student movement organizations. The films that came out during this period were reflective of the intensified solidification of activist social movements: the production and distribution of activist films drew on the mobilization of underground financial resources, technology, and social networks. The radical films of this era opened up a marginal but alternative space vis-à-vis the state-controlled and commercially driven Korean film market inundated by hastily made domestic films produced to earn rights to import foreign films, especially Hollywood movies. In what follows, I will briefly describe how the film industry operated in Korea before and during the rise of film activism. The Korean public’s initial exposure to film occurred in the late 1890s and was quickly followed by the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 (Lent 1990). Korean filmmakers struggled in this colonial environment, and often had to depend on Japanese theater owners for funding and distribution. The first Korean film made by Koreans came out in 1923, but Japanese colonial control (i.e., Japanese implementation of the Motion Picture Censorship Guidelines in 1926) of Korean films became tighter as the “Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the escalating war efforts gradually transformed the cinemas of both Korea and Japan into propaganda machines. The prohibition of Korean as a civil language in the 1930s virtually dismantled the national film industry, since Korean ‘talkies’ could no longer be made” (James and Kim 2002: 21). Even Korea’s independence from Japan in 1945 did not automatically lead to the flourishing of autonomous Korean film production, as Korea experienced U.S. military occupation and the subsequent Korean War (1950–1953). In 1946, the American military government replaced the 1939 Chosŏn Film Regulations (imposed by the Japanese) with a similar censorship system. Hyangjin Lee describes this period as one in which the “Americanization of the viewers’ taste” took off as the “South Korean film industry was mainly engaged in importing and distributing American films” (2000: 45). EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The Korean film industry, however, slowly gained strength with the support of the government in the mid and late 1950s (Lee 1969; Lee Hyangjin 2000; Lent 1990). The April 19 Uprising of 1960, a public outcry for a democratic Korea, also brought about changes in film policy: censorship authority was transferred from the government to a civil organization (the Film Ethics National Committee) (Lee 1969: 229). But this was a short-lived reform, and was followed by a military coup in 1961, a counter-revolution carried out by Park Chung-hee. The Park government’s film policy, according to Lee Young-il, a renowned Korean film scholar, was driven by a level of strict state control that was “unprecedented anywhere else in the world” (Lee 1969: 252). The Motion Picture Law enacted by Park consolidated “the film industry into a limited number of companies, and [made] them dependent on the government for their long-term success” (Paquet 2009: 46). The Motion Picture Law required production companies to be equipped with studios and a certain level of facilities, and be registered with the government. This effectively reduced the number of production companies from 65 to 17 (Lent 1990). The Park administration (1961–1979) also limited the number of imported films by placing quotas and import duties on the industry. The Motion Picture Law stated that to qualify for importing a foreign film, a producer had to make a minimum of four domestic films and earn from them at least $20,000. As a result, to earn an import license local filmmakers churned out low-quality films (Lent 1990: 135). According to Kyung Hyun Kim, “all film production companies now had to meet strict government guidelines, which required them to make films that were not only ‘morally correct’ but also promoted the state ideology of hard work, frugality, and anticommunism” (2002: 26). Hyangjin Lee comments that the Motion Picture Law was “quite similar to the Chosŏn Motion Picture Act enforced during the Japanese occupation” and required production companies to get a state license to operate. It also required “double censorship”: “all films had to be reported to the censor before production and submitted again for a second censorship before being released to the public” (2000: 51). Freedom in cinematic expression was severely curtailed under the long military dictatorship. However, the Kwangju Uprising of May 1980, where civilians demanding the repeal of martial law (which had been imposed by Major General Chun Doo-hwan) were ruthlessly murdered by elite paratroopers, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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allegedly with the acquiescence of the United States government, became a watershed for political activists in “discovering” the importance of the media. Chun Doo-hwan’s first step was to lay siege to the television stations in Seoul. The atrocities committed during the Kwangju Massacre were reported neither on the national television networks nor in newspapers. Reports expressing political dissent in any sense were banned for violating the National Security Law. The term yŏnghwa undong (film activism) gained recognition among college students right after the 1980 Kwangju Massacre (Seoul Visual Collective 1996: 20). In the early 1980s, a time when any media expressing dissent were censored, student activists mobilized those critical of the repressive political climate through film. These dissident voices materialized in the form of college film groups and film collectives on campus in defiance of state censorship. Within this broader historical context, film activism became institutionalized as a part of the minjung cultural movement. According to Koo, since the 1970s, minjung, emerged as a powerful term for political struggle and social movement. Minjung implies a broad alliance of “alienated classes,” people alienated from power and from the distribution of the fruits of economic growth. It became a powerful opposition ideology and a political symbol, and provided a new social identity for all who participated in political, social, and cultural movements in opposition to the authoritarian system. (1993b: 131–32)

Koo (1993b:144) argues that the minjung movement was not contained in the framework of economic struggle, and had an “enormous cultural and intellectual impact,” encompassing literature, theology, theater, music, and film/video.1 Choi Chungmoo asserts that the minjung cultural movement should be understood in the context of Third World “decolonization movement” which has attempted to dismantle “the colonial discourse on indigenous culture” (1995: 106–7). In order to subvert the colonized culture, the minjung cultural movement appropriated “folk culture” such as shamanistic rituals, traditional mask-dance drama, and madanggŭk (open-air theater).2 The cultural movement suggested that these indigenous cultural elements have subversive power to overcome “market-oriented foreign culture” (Choi 1995: 108–9), resonating with Fanon’s (1963) call for reinstalling indigenous culture. The thrust of this movement was EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the “re-reading of history as history of the oppressed minjung’s struggle” and the dismantling of Korea’s market-oriented foreign/colonial culture (Choi 1995: 108, 117). People who subscribed to film activism came out of the minjung cultural movement tradition and used the film medium to fight political oppression and the colonial legacy embedded in the mass media and Korean society as a whole. Throughout the 1980s, activist filmmakers’ films and videos were distributed as a means for mobilizing people for this political cause. Although film activism became institutionalized in the cultural movement in the 1980s, constructing film activism as part of the cultural movement was fraught with ambiguity and compromise since even the proponents of film activism perceived film to be “inherently a foreign medium,” especially compared to reinvigorated traditional mask dance and shamanistic theater. Self-conscious of the limits of film as a foreign medium, proponents of film activism recognized that film technology, which was “colonized by capitalism,” was doubly limiting and repressive: first, film was a commodity; second, the local process of film commodification did not even represent local people and culture because of the influence of Hollywood films saturated with “sex, violence, speed, a Western-centric worldview, Western life-styles, and Western cultural sensibility” (Hong 1985: 212). In this view, the pre-revolutionary film medium was doubly burdened in that the medium was not only commodified but had also been turned into a Trojan Horse from the West. This heightened self-consciousness around film as a revolutionary tool in writings from the 1980s was confirmed by many film activists in interviews during my research. Many mentioned their “inferiority complex” arising from involvement in such an ambiguous medium that was not taken seriously within the cultural movement. For instance, Ji Sangsu*, the head of the KIFA Central Committee, who was deeply involved both in the folk theater movement and film activism in the 1980s and 1990s, commented that when he decided to move from theater to film during the mid-1980s, his status within the central cultural movement organization in Seoul became much more marginal. With film considered an “inferior” medium, the task of Korean film activism was to “liberate” the film medium and technology from commodification and Hollywoodization. Yi Hye-yŏng, another advocate of film activism, asks, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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What is the pure and primordial form of the film medium? What would a film, which is not a commodity, look like? . . . Our mission is to search for new ways of connecting film and society. Theaters are like crematories for films just as exhibit halls are like prisons for art. Films screened at theaters as commodities do not have positive potential in a society. The myth that people should watch films on big screens must be shattered. (Yi Hye-yŏng 1985: 238–39)

Yi Hye-yŏng captured the basic three elements of primordial/ pre-commodified filmmaking: “filming subjects” showing “film objects” to “viewers.” These three elements of primordial filmmaking, put in a “distorted” Korean context, the author argues, typically involved the following: “Filming subjects are usually technocrats or intelligentsia, film objects are bourgeois lives and their worldview, largely uprooted from Korean reality, and the viewers are an amorphous mass. . . . These three elements are separated, mutually exclusive, and even hostile to each other” (1985: 239). Yi further argues, In the current situation in which these three elements are alienated from each other, genuine cultural activities cannot be accomplished. Koreans watching Yankees’ naked bodies, workers watching a dreamlike world of martial arts movies and soft porn—this is nothing more than the destruction of culture and a symptom of schizophrenia. We have to overcome the alienation of the three elements and recover the one-ness of these three. (239)

Yi admits that unlike folk arts the film medium does not have roots in communality and community. “The film medium was born in the context of atomized individuals and Western monopoly capitalist society.” This, he says, is the “original sin” of cinema (1985: 239). In order to overcome this “original sin,” film activism had to duplicate folk cultural elements in film. For instance, proponents of film activism advocated “communal production” based on the folk culture/masses’ culture. This idea was based on a sharp distinction between the “dominant culture” and the “masses’ culture”: the producers and consumers of “the dominant culture” are separated and the culture is “one-sidedly and bureaucratically” produced to be fed to consumers who have the wealth to purchase such cultural products. The “masses’ culture,” on the contrary, is “derived from people’s lives and labor, and the producers and recipients of such culture are the masses EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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themselves” (Hong 1985: 218). Folk music and dance, the advocates of film activism argued, had been created in this mode of art production/ reception, and such art forms were intimately tied to the experience of labor. According to advocates of film activism (Yi Hye-yŏng 1985; Hong 1985), in this mode in which art production and reception are enmeshed, labor and play, which also became separated in the capitalist mode of production, remain intertwined and interactive. The description of these folk art forms is largely based on idealized images of an idyllic pre-capitalist peasant world, the antithesis of the conflict-ridden capitalist society the cultural movement advocates were writing against. Hong (1985) suggests that despite the nature of film production, which is different from the “folk culture mode” in which play and labor are enmeshed, film producers should strive for the “basic structure of communal production,” thus emulating the folk culture mode. Based on this logic, the production of these activist films entailed certain distinct features including kongdong jagŏp (communal production)/group authorship (Seoul Film Collective 1985: 217).3 Therefore, communal production in the 1980s involved multiple directors—the preferred term was yŏnch’ul (literally, “art-inducers”), not kamdok (“director”).4 The term kamdok has been broadly used as an equivalent of the English word “film director,” but the same word has also been used for factory or shop floor supervisors and foremen in Korea. The first Chinese character, kam, means “surveillance” and the second character, dok, denotes regulation and order.5 Most of the independent films of the 1980s gave ending credits solely to film collectives or groups, not to individual yŏnch’uls. This style of crediting arose not only from minjung’s Marxist-influenced ideology, which views art as the outcome of collaborative human labor rather than individual creativity, but also out of the very real fear of being prosecuted by the Korean National Security Agency. For instance, as I noted earlier in this chapter, Kim Dong-won’s documentary credited the “shantytown resident community” as the director/producer of Sanggyedong Olympics. In an interview, he noted, “Originally I planned to credit Chun Doo-hwan’s Fifth Republic and Sanggyedong shantytown dwellers as the co-directors/ co-producers of the documentary. Those two parties are the ones who really ‘directed’ the whole thing. I merely recorded the events. The agent of these events was the shantytown residents, not me” (Nam and Yi 2003: 37). Not only were the urban poor credited on a rhetorical level, they also took part in filming the events as Kim participated in the struggles himself. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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“Whoever grabbed the camera would start videotaping what was going on,” Kim commented in a conversation with me. Kim also actively tried to educate and organize the residents who were interested in the use of cameras in chronicling the struggles between the residents and the eviction squads. The activist films that came out throughout the 1980s until the mid1990s adopted communal production as a dominant model, although the implementation of this model varied from case to case. The practice of adopting the folk culture model in film activism became an unquestionable imperative because, in the politicized folk culture, “for the first time in Korean history, a large number of elite and members of the oppressed class found common ground for solidarity in the name of cultural nationalism” (Choi 1995: 117). The reconstructed folk culture model is based on a clear dichotomy between the “self” (usually the nation or people/masses) and the “other” (the corrupt state or foreign powers). The following story illustrates how such intensified polarization between “us” and the “other” was experienced by an individual named Kwon. This vignette provides a sense of this polarization/radicalization of the Korean cultural scene in the 1980s.

K wo n ’s “ D o u b l e L i f e ” In 2000, Kwon Jong-hwan*, a programmer at a major international film festival, often talked about the intriguing time in the 1980s when he was “torn between two worlds.” I was working at the film festival as his translator for foreign guests, and whenever I asked him about his earlier experience as a budding film enthusiast, he went off to talk about his “double life” with a great sense of humor and irony: Starting from 1977, when I was a senior in high school, I started attending the French Cultural Center’s Thursday Cinema Club to watch French films. This went on throughout my college years [1978–1981]. During that time, I basically hung out with Chŏn Yang-jun, Kang Han-sŏp, and Chŏng Sŏng-il [who became recognizable names as head programmers at a major international film festival and/or film critics] at foreign culture centers such as French Cultural Center or German Cultural Center. We also went to theaters that were located in an American GI camp in Seoul. In the GI camp, you had to have a U.S. soldier’s sponsorship for EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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everything, and often you were expected to be escorted by one. So we would pass the front gate by giving names of a KATUSA friend, and patiently wait in front of the theater in the GI camp until we successfully persuaded a random officer who was walking by to get tickets for us.6 We would tell them that we were eager film enthusiasts who were desperate to watch American films that were never played outside the camp. And there would be a sympathetic American officer who would buy tickets for us so that we could watch Bonnie and Clyde. . . . But then, when I was on my college’s campus, I couldn’t tell other students that I was watching American films or listening to American music. . . . . I was a closet Bruce Springsteen fan. I would listen to him at home but would have to denounce anything American at school and shout “Down with the Yankees.” It was a very ironic time. People should really make movies about this period.

His speaking of the discrepancy between his public persona and private life resonates with many informants who talked about the time when political radicalism was in its height. These film enthusiasts, like Kwon, in their private lives sought alternatives to the mainstream Korean films in European films and the Hollywood films that were not subject to Korean state censorship. To get access to such films, Kwon resorted to institutions such as foreign culture centers and even American military camps. In this aspect, a film buff’s experience in film consumption covered a wider range of films and was much more fluid than his rather rigid anti-Western ideology and anti–cultural imperialism might imply. This also mirrors Kim Dong-won’s narrative of his youth—upper-middle-class background, drugs, and rock music—which he often contrasts with the minjung-oriented life-style that followed his “decadent” past. The dichotomy (corrupt state vs. resistance, foreign vs. native) that film activism both subscribed to and reproduced provides background for understanding how in the current moment such a dichotomy is still a powerful idiom. In the rest of this chapter, I examine how the ideologies of film activism were formulated and radicalized as the mantra of anti–cultural imperialism became much more rigid after the late 1970s to early 1980s. In the process, the spaces for producing and consuming underground films became completely divorced, in both ideology and in practice, from the state-controlled mainstream Korean film production and distribution that was seen as “corrupted” by foreign films. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Development of Film Activism The first student film group that made a mark in the history of organized dissident filmmaking was Yallashyŏng, a film group at Seoul National University. This group was formed in 1980, and started producing 8mm films, including recordings of political rallies, in the early 1980s. The communal aspect of production for these early activist films was emphasized, and so the films were not credited to any single director. According to film critics, “although these 8mm early activist films’ lighting and cinematography were at an amateur level . . . they were the first to openly oppose and criticize the Korean state and cinema as a whole” (Yi, Yi, and Kim 1996:104). Members of this group reunited after graduation, and formed the Seoul Film Collective in 1982. The Seoul Film Collective, adopting the discourses of the Third Cinema,7 was the first Korean group that officially recognized film as a crucial means for social change. The collective compiled two books, Toward a New Cinema (1983) and Theory of Film Activism (1985), which became canonical works among Korean underground filmmakers. The first volume, Toward a New Cinema, is a collection of translated essays on post–World War European cinema, Latin American cinema, and African cinema. This book is the first concerted effort to explore the possibility of Yŏlin yŏnghwa (“Open Cinema”), a concept that placed film within a participatory democratic movement. In this volume, a member of Seoul Film Collective, Chang Sŏn-u (alternatively spelled Jang Sun-woo),8 who later became a prominent auteur of the New Korean Cinema in the late 1980s and 1990s, argued that Open Cinema should emulate madanggŭk (open-air folk theater), which had been promoted by many cultural activists at the time. According to Chungmoo Choi (1995: 115), “the polyphonic open structure of the mask-dance theater rather than a linear narrative structure, and the incorporation of the shamanic ritual, are two of the crucial elements of madanggŭk.” The creative strategies pursued by Chang’s Open Cinema were almost exactly those of the mask-dance theater. The contributors to the volume Toward a New Cinema argued that like open-air folk theater, whose open forum anticipates “audience participation and communication,” Open Cinema should go beyond the closed structure of narrative films (Chang 1983: 379). Chang Sŏn-u uses EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the example of Rosellini’s Paisà (1946), which is composed of six independent episodes that are only related by the shared timeframe of World War II. According to Chang there is no singular narrative penetrating these six independent episodes but they convey the tragedy of war more effectively than any other war film. He goes on to argue that “cinema of verse,” like open-air folk theater, is more powerful than “cinema of prose,” or narrative cinema, in making the experience of film watching communal. Chang argues that “verse enables people to memorize and sublimate individual memories into a collective one. In this case, verse is collective. Prose explains and analyzes while verse integrates” (1983: 381). It is hard to explain what Chang’s vision of the Open Cinema exactly is because his statements are more poetic than analytic. There is P’annori Arirang (1982), an earlier documentary film by the Seoul Film Collective, however, which seems to represent what Chang is arguing for. This film documents a play called P’annori Arirang Koge, which appropriates folk songs and folk theater elements. In this film, visual and sound are intentionally disjointed: scenes from rehearsals, performances, and the dressing room have sounds from the play, audience interviews, and theater members’ evaluations recorded over them. Such a defamiliarization strategy, according to Nam and Yi (2003), is meant to elicit the audience’s interpretation and intervention. Nam and Yi (2003: 21) pay attention to the audience’s verbal reactions to the play that are voiced over the scenes from the play: various audience reactions are recorded over as some praise the play’s relevance to politics outside the theater while others cynically comment that the main audience of the play would be “highbrow intellectuals.” Through such a film strategy, the filmmakers of this documentary reflect on the reality that is represented in the play and the meaning of the play, and further the meaning of filming such a play (Nam and Yi 2003: 21). This style and strategy of P’annori Arirang stand out from the other activist films of the 1980s and 1990s: “P’annori Arirang’s reflexive style reminds the audience of the interpretive nature of the documentary. This is unique compared to later works which treated documentary as a ‘means of assertion.’ As film activism became more radical and popular in the late 1980s and 1990s, such ‘reflexivity’ or ‘aesthetic consciousness’ became rare qualities” (Nam and Yi 2003: 21). In short, Open Cinema in the early period of the development of film activism drew freely from Western European non-narrative cinemas as EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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well as Korean traditional folk theater. P’annori Arirang, the first documentary that came out of the Seoul Film Collective, married folk theater elements to the Brechtian notion of “distance effect” (bringing the audience’s attention to the constructed nature of play/film’s reality). In this sense, the aesthetics of the early period of film activism are extremely eclectic: there are references to Korean traditional folk theater, Third Cinema (the Cuban cine-mambí movement, the Bolivian Ukamau Film Collective, Brazilian Cinema Novo, the Argentine Grupo Cine Liberación, etc.), African cinema, and European cinema. The Seoul Film Collective’s That Summer (1984), Bluebird (1986), and other 8mm films that followed P’annori Arirang had a totally different style and voice, so it would be impossible to fairly analyze the works of this group based solely on P’annori Arirang. However, my intention is to show that the early ideology and practices of activist filmmaking were eclectic and flexible. The second book edited by the Seoul Film Collective, Theory of Film Activism (1985), has much more direct and multiple references to the Latin American Third Cinema. This book features translations of articles on Third Cinema such as “Toward a Third Cinema,” by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (originally written in 1969). Contributors to this volume proposed “Small Cinema,” a derivative of Open Cinema from the first volume. The concept of “Small Cinema” contested the political validity of 35mm—therefore, “big”—commercial films that did nothing to alleviate the obstructed/repressed communication flows in Korea’s “closed” society. Here, the militant and collective rhetoric becomes more salient, using terms such as “film activism” and “small group film movement.” The discussions of Small Films or Open Films, however, were still open to diverse traditions in world cinema including European art films and New Hollywood Cinema. The people who were part of the discussion on Open Films were a mixture of the art film crowd, who had been devout members of “cinema clubs” at the German and French Cultural Centers in Seoul and those who were involved in the social movement. As seen in Kwon’s “double life” vignette, these “cinema clubs” provided a unique space for the audience to see films that were never shown in Korean theaters during the “dark age” (throughout the 1970s and early 1980s) of Korean cinema, deeply marred by draconian state censorship. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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R a dica liz ation of Film Acti v ism In contrast to the era I have described above, the late-1980s witnessed the radicalization of the film activist circuit, which became much more intolerant of those who were not vocally leftist and nationalistic. In a book called National Cinema I (1989), edited by one of the radical film groups of the era, editor Yi Hyo-in harshly criticized the organizers (including “double life”-leading Kwon) of a film festival that was planned to be held at the German Cultural Center in January 1989. Yi argued that the “fake nationalist filmmakers and audience do not see the consequences of such hazardous behavior—of hosting the festival at the German Cultural Center, an emblem of collaboration between Korean fascists and German imperialists.” He further contended that “the German Cultural Center has no connection to the Korean mass classes and it is a crime for the organizers to think that hosting an alternative film festival at the German Cultural Center would have any kind of a positive effect” (Yi Hyo-in 1989: 29). In the mid and late 1980s, Yi became was one of the people who led the Minjokyŏnghwa Yŏn-guso (National Cinema Research Group), which was largely influenced by a political sect called NL (National Liberation Front). Two political anchors around which the various political factions were built were the reunification of the two Koreas and the centrality of the labor movement in achieving Korean democracy. A political faction that emphasized North Korea’s “self-reliance” ideology, juche, in the process of South Korean revolution was called the National Liberation Front (NL). The opponents (often called PD, which stands for People’s Democratic League), who viewed North Korea in a much less favorable way, disputed NL’s thesis and argued that the revolutionary agency was the South Korean working class. The conflict and animosity between the two activist camps intensified as they became more and more organized and institutionalized. The conflict was played out in every sector of Korean activist culture in the 1980s and 1990s including the film activist circuit. Although Yi Hyo-in was an early member of the Seoul Film Collective, which produced the two key film activist canons in the early 1980s, Yi and his group tried to distance themselves from previous efforts that they saw as emblematic of the mind-set of the foreign cultural centers’ art film buffs—such as “double life” Kwon. Yi and his group called for propaganda videos to “educate” workers (Yi, Yi, and Kim 1996: 106). EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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As the atmosphere became increasingly militant, terms such as “Open Cinema” and “Small Cinema” that used to be in currency were deemed vague and apolitical. The terms basically disappeared from film activism discussions, and were replaced by “minjung [popular masses] films” or “minjok [national] films.” These terms reflected the political factional affiliations (PD vs. NL) of the users of these words. The proponents of rigorous film activism—from both camps—proposed more politically engaged production and consumption of activist films. The best-known and most representative work to emerge from these efforts was The Eve of a Strike (P’aŏpchŏnya, Changsan-gonmae Film Collective, 1990), a 16mm feature film. The basic story line was a conflict between an exploitative factory owner and the factory workers who came to be awakening to their own rights through the painful experience of their labor struggles. The activist film community extolled this film as a “great accomplishment in minjung realism” (Yi Chŏng-ha 1990). Some activist film reviewers (Cho Jae-hong 1996) of The Eve of a Strike, however, argued that the film in fact adopted the “conventional” narrative styles of Hollywood films.9 This viewpoint did not gain much support from the activist film community when it came out (Yi Hyoin 1996). During my interviews with KIFA members, however, many expressed similar opinions about the film, which could have been “sacrilegious” if uttered in 1990. As can be seen in this case, as the political atmosphere within film activism radicalized in the early 1990s, earlier discussions concerning style, reflexivity, and audience gradually disappeared, and most of the discussion was filtered through the discourses of minjung realism. These radical films were produced with the intention of “enlightening” viewers by having them “absorb” the realist images on the screen, an “extension of the reality of state violence and people’s suffering,” as producers and directors from this era usually put it. The filmmakers believed in the power of minjung realism and the sense of immediacy that it promised to evoke. As Kim Dong-won notes recalling this era, “What was happening in real life was more dramatic than fiction during those times.” Yi Sangin, the director of Mother, Your Son (Ŏmŏni, Dangshinŭ Adŭl, 1991), in a similar vein, commented, “Since reality itself was so violent and dramatic, there was little need to ‘treat’ such reality. I just shot what was in front of me, and that would be enough.”10 EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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In my numerous conversations with filmmakers of this era, a theme that came up time and again was that activist filmmakers, whether they were making fiction or documentary, considered themselves “witnesses” of violent reality rather than “creators” or “artists.” Discussions about the nature of representation in realism—often manifested in debates over aesthetics or styles of the individual films of this era—were pushed aside and considered unimportant or even “anti-revolutionary.”

Consumption of Activist Films The Eve of a Strike (1990) became one of the most popular films played at rallies and activist gatherings. It managed to attract a great many spectators—an estimated one million—through non-theatrical settings.11 This unprecedented success sparked a drastic and violent reaction from the state in its effort to ban the film from screening in public. Two 16mm films that came out shortly thereafter were Mother, Your Son (1991), a Korean adaptation of Maksim Gorky’s novel Mother, and Open the School Gate (Tach’in kyomunŭl yŏlmyŏ, Yi Jae-gu, dir., 1992), a film on the state suppression of the Teachers Union. Each of these two films attracted around 160,000 viewers, and generated plenty of publicity because of violent raids of the screening sites by the police. The activist film group Chŏngnyŏn (Youth), which produced Mother, Your Son, refused to accept state censorship, arguing that since the film was shot in 16mm it should not be subjected to state censorship reviews, which mainly governed 35mm commercial films. The sites of screening films that came out in the early 1990s became places of massive confrontations between the state and social movement groups. A proponent of film activism argues that “healthy dynamics” between the elements of filmmaking could be achieved in the following way: First, the filming subjects should have an exact understanding of society, a will to overcome social injustice, and a vision for transforming society. . . . Those who are only interested in the inner logic of film texts cannot become true film subjects. Second, the objects of film should be social reality. . . . Three, the assumption that the masses are undifferentiated should be modified. In a stratified society in which the dominant ideology and counter-hegemonic viewpoints contradict each EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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other, the ideology of “classless masses” as “viewers” is false. We need to actively organize targeted audiences according to the agenda of each specific film. (Yi Hye-yŏng 1985: 239–40)

As proponents of film activism purported, in the framework of this opposition, the audience was viewed as an object of strategic mobilization. According to documents released by the activist film group Chŏngnyŏn, student movement organizations embraced Mother, Your Son with great enthusiasm as they organized struggles around the screenings of the film. According to the “Screening Report” published by Chŏngnyŏn, “all the university student movement bodies that participated in the premiere of Mother, Your Son organized and prepared the screening of the film. In order to elevate the experience of film-watching from a mere curiosity to the space for conceptualization and learning, the student movement bodies decided to prepare “discussion manuals” (Chŏngnyŏn 1991: 5). In addition to strategically providing a list of social issues for discussions after each film screening, student movement bodies also organized groups based on departmental student organizations. This was to encourage “group viewing” as opposed to “individual viewing.” The report published by Chŏngnyŏn lists the struggles that the film ignited as it was screened at 92 universities around the country for approximately a month. Throughout these struggles, an average of 1,500–2,000 riot police and riot-suppressant technologies, such as water cannons, tear gas missiles, bulldozers, and helicopters were mobilized to disrupt the screening of Mother, Your Son. According to a police search warrant and “film evaluation” documents, the police claimed that the film promoted pro–North Korean and anti-American sentiment. The warrant has three lengthy quotes from Kim Il-sung’s writings—on the role of art in revolution—and concludes that the film was a “pro–North Korean propaganda film that advocates subverting the current government” (Chŏngnyŏn 1991; “Police Enter Foreign Language University with Bulldozers,” Chosun Ilbo, April 17, 1991; “Pro-Communist Art Debate, Mother, Your Son Becomes a Hot Issue,” Chosun Ilbo, April 18, 1991). As these struggles unfolded, many students were arrested and injured. A student at Chungnam University who was trying to secure the screening space was shot by a tear gas missile and passed out as a Molotov cocktail he was holding ignited his clothes, burning him severely. Another EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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student, at Kyŏngki University, who was also trying to secure the screening space from the riot police, lost his eyesight when a tear gas missile hit his right eye (Hankyoreh Daily, April 13, 1991). The violence of state oppression added a particular dimension to the consumption of these activist films. The film-watching experience in this context was not necessarily about watching films but about experiencing a violent event in which film functioned as a prop at the center of the stage. Most of my informants, who expressed their excitement and pride over “watching” activist films in open public spaces such as school campuses, labor union meetings, and peasant gatherings, when asked about their memories of this film experience, told me that in fact they were moving in and out of the place of screening and were engaged in an “extension of reality” that was both on and off screen. The “extension of reality” took on a whole different meaning when state violence was played out in a parallel manner both on screen and off screen when activist films were shown. Kyung Hyun Kim similarly observed that “the struggles outside the theaters were far more spectacular than the ones projected onto the silver screen” in his discussion of the release of Oh! Dream Land (O kkum ŭi nara, Changsan-gonmae Film Collective 1989), the first film to depict the Kwangju Massacre (Kyung Hyun Kim 2002: 45). Many of my informants who were “viewers” actually did not watch the film at all. At the screenings, they were usually occupied with protecting the viewing spaces when police forced their way in, shot tear gas, and beat up the spectators. According to some of my KIFA informants who were fervent student activists in the past, “even the most timid students who were hesitant to take the plunge into activism” were willing to participate in the screenings (due to the relatively low-risk nature of the activity). The activists were determined to protect those newcomers, even resorting to drastic measures—throwing chunks of broken pavement or Molotov cocktails—to fight off the police. In this kind of setting, consumption of realist images became something more than absorbing the “truth” or “reality” that is represented on the screen: in this respect, the way the activist films were consumed outweighed a realist textual strategy. Therefore, the political films of this era should be understood as part of political rituals and performances rather than realist texts. The production and consumption of activist films introduces a notion of agency in film consumption usually inundated with images of passive EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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moviegoers watching films as a private pastime. In their discussion of an Argentinean film La Hora de los Hornos (Hour of the Furnaces, 1968), directed by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Shohat and Stam illustrate a different kind of agency: The two-dimensional space of the screen gives way to the threedimensional space of theater and politics. The film mobilizes activity rather than self-indulgent fantasy. Rather than vibrating to the sensibility of an auteur, the spectators are encouraged to “author” their own collective narrative. Rather than placing a hero on the screen, the film suggests that audience members are history’s real protagonists. Rather than a place of regression, the cinema becomes a political stage on which to act. . . . Rather than hermetically sealing itself off from life, the text makes itself permeable to history and practice, calling for co-conspirators and not consumers. (Shohat and Stam 1994: 262)

Although fraught with excessive romanticism and idealism, Shohat and Stam’s statement captures the ideology of multiple-authoring—not just collective production, but consumers who become co-conspirators of political action—of Korean activist films. As Kim Dong-won notes, the initial audience for his documentaries consisted of the subjects themselves: “Every evening I would watch the tapes that I recorded that day with the shantytown residents. People would laugh and cry as they watch. People would gain strength through these viewings even if they looked shabby on screen. They gained confidence and reflected on their actions through the viewings. That’s when it became a documentary in which people gained agency” (Nam and Yi 2003: 36). This “socially engaged mode of independent film practice,” as Chris Berry (2003) puts it, was based on a model of a community in which the film subjects and audience merge as one defiant community in solidarity against the state’s violence. Even as the audience of activist films grew and were not the film subjects themselves anymore (as seen in the consumption of The Eve of a Strike, Mother, Your Son, and other activist films in the 1980s and early 1990s), the audience became “imagined” as a single community against the corrupt state through the shared experience of violence and struggle at the screenings. In the following chapter, I examine how such ideas and practices of film activism have been challenged since the mid-1990s by a new mode of independent filmmaking. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Independent Film Cultural Production under Postauthoritarian Conditions

In the preceding chapter, I traced the development of film activism and showed how it opened up alternative spaces and practices for film production and consumption—in the form of defiant communal producers and audience communities in opposition to state oppression. Film activism fits nicely into Chris Berry’s (2003) definition of the “socially-engaged mode” or “community mode,” since the film activism of the 1980s and early ’90s used practices of production and consumption that were based on politically homogenous communities constructed through the shared experience of state oppression and violence. In contrast, in the postauthoritarian context, the audience for KIFA’s and Kim Dong-won’s films cuts across social classes and political affiliation. How should we characterize these new spaces that Kim and KIFA occupy? How do we conceptualize the new spaces that opened up especially when the legacy of film activism still remained legitimate and powerful under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations? Before answering these questions, it is important first to examine the meaning of “independent” filmmaking in Korea, a label Kim Dong-won and other film activists had come to accept whether they liked it or not. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The Emergence of Korean “Independent” Film The weakening of political radicalism in the context of the post–Cold War global order and the postauthoritarian Korean civilian state challenged the identity of film activist groups and film activism as a whole. The term “film activism” died out in the early 1990s, as the currency of militant social movement waned. In addition to this change in the political and social atmosphere, newly available and affordable digital technology liberated filmmakers from celluloid, which entailed heavy, cumbersome, and costly equipment. In the past, there was a practical reason to be a part of a film group or collective, aside from political motivations. Individuals had to be coordinated in groups in order to reduce cost. With digital technology, filmmakers could buy reasonably priced digital cameras that fit into the palm of the hand and produce their own work independently. But despite this technology and the changing political environment in which the old political rhetoric was losing ground, activist filmmakers held together, regrouping under the banner of “independent film groups.” Independent film organizations on a national level did not dissolve. On the contrary, KIFA’s annual budget kept growing, reaching a hundred million wŏn (approximately $77,500) by 2001. There was an influx of capital from the film industry as well as stable and institutionalized support from the state. Numerous newcomers with various backgrounds joined the organization, and the number of members kept growing steadily. The growth of “independent film groups” in this complex nexus between the state, capital, and activism begged the question, What is independent about Korean independent film? The term dongnip yŏnghwa (independent film) emerged for the first time in the film activism circuit in January 1990, when several film activist collectives established an umbrella committee called the Han’guk Dongip Yŏnghwa Hyŏphyue (Korean Independent Film Committee).1 The film groups/collectives—Minjok Yŏnghwa Yŏn-guso (National Film Research Center), Arirang Yŏnghwa Yŏn-guhoe (Arirang Film Research Group), Yŏnghwa Kongdongchae (Film Community), Yŏnghwa Madang Uri (Film Community “Us”), Uri Madangpae (Community Dance Group)—which participated in this committee still had minjok (nation), minjung (people), EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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“film activism,” and “community” as their main self-referential terms in their names and documents (KIFA 2000:13). When the term dongnip yŏnghwa, a literal translation of English term “independent film,” was first used by the Korean Independent Film Committee in 1991, the alien term “independent”—neither minjok (nation) nor minjung (people)—was meant to bridge political-factional differences, as it avoided any reference to the conflict within the film activist community between the minjok-centered (nationalist-minded) National Liberation Front and the minjung-based (socialist-minded) People’s Democratic League.2 Since “independent” was not a politically tainted word, it was used interchangeably with “activist film,” encompassing films that came out of both the minjok and minjung factions. I think that initially “independent” was a discursive strategy to overcome the sectarianism within the film activist community while maintaining the old vision of film activism. Although the source of this new encompassing word was America, the usage was complex and often confusing. In a sense, Korean independent film initially bore little resemblance to American independent films. On first encountering the word “independent,” most people found it confusing. Many of my informants said they were “clueless” as to what the word meant when they first heard it. One of my informants even joked that when he first heard the term he thought it might have something to do with the independence movement during the Japanese colonial era. By the mid-1990s, the term “independent film” had gained currency since all previous terms used for alternative films such as undong yŏnghwa (activist films), minjung yŏnghwa (people’s films), and minjok yŏnghwa (national films) suddenly seemed antiquated and irrelevant under the new civilian rule in Korea. In 1994, Samsung, the largest Korean chaebŏl (conglomerate), funded a big film festival (the Samsung Short-Film Festival) featuring mainly “independent films.” In 1997, Samsung’s fourth film festival featured 121 films, and invited widely known Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai as a judge. Key members of the film activist community and well-known independent filmmakers were also on board as judges. During the festival Samsung sponsored scholarly seminars and symposiums titled “Reflecting on Ten Years of Korean Independent Film History” and “What Is Asian Cinema’s Identity?” (KIFA 2000: 23). Film critic Yi Hyo-in—who appeared in the preceding chapter as a fervent film activist—notes that the Samsung Short-Film Festival was a watershed as it marked a “generation change” and “transition in practice and logic” EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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within the independent film circuit. He concludes that the festival had a positive impact on the independent film circuit as it opened up visions that challenged the traditional apprentice-based system in the mainstream film industry. At the same time, he argues, it “castrated the activist energy of the activist film community” and sped up the transition to an “apolitical era” (Yi Hyo-in 2001: 128). This statement reflected the transition within the independent film community, as a number of independent filmmakers were recruited by mainstream producers at film festivals and later accelerated to their debuts in the mainstream film industry. By participating in film festivals, these filmmakers forwent the traditional apprenticeships (to more established directors) that had been the required path into the mainstream film industry. The hesitancy evident in Yi’s comments about the disintegration of film activism via the creation of “independent film,” however, was still at work even as film festivals became the main outlet for many independent filmmakers. Attempts to distance Korean independent film from American independent film were still prevalent: KIFA’s Declaration of Foundation (1997) starts with a question, “What is independent film?” It goes on to claim that we are asking this awkward and clichéd question because we believe that even though the façade of independent films might evolve over time, the very fundamental spirit should stand firm. We are asking this question, in part, to reflect on our own cynicism. It is often taken for granted that “independent” means independent from censorship and big money. But the meaning of “independent” will be complete when what it means to be independent for becomes clearer. We declare that we are independent from hackneyed cinematic formulae: We adopt intense and honest representations—not glossy and sumptuous images—as our cinematic language. We declare that we are independent from power in order to protect a person’s human rights and minorities’ freedom. . . . We need to distance ourselves from numerous compromises, mass media’s limelight, many invitations from various film festivals, and tempting receptions offered at these events. When we rise above this glitz and use our cameras honestly, our cinema will be independent. (KIFA 2000: 27, italics added)

In order to discuss how the Korean understanding of “independent” might differ from or converge with its American counterpart, it is imperative to get a sense of what is meant by the term “independent” in the United States. American independent films existed as early as 1919, when EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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United Artists was founded. It was distinct from the dominant studios in that it provided a means for the distribution and release of independently produced features made by those who “sought more control over their own films and profits” (Pribram 2002: xv). What the term “independent film” connoted changed over time. Pribram notes that “following the demise of the B studios in the late 1940s and 1950s, independent also came to signify low-budget genre or exploitation pictures. . . . It was in the 1980s and 1990s that independent film took its current sense of respected specialty fare, often self- or privately financed and released by a handful of specialty distributors” (2002: xvi). Recently, it has become more difficult to define American independent film since “as of 2003, all seven major studios—Disney, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century–Fox, Sony, United Artists–MGM, Paramount, and Universal—have independent arms” (Holmlund and Wyatt 2004: 8). The term has always been a relational one: “independent and mainstream feature films are linked together on a sliding scale. Neither ideologically nor economically are they purely antithetical” (Holmlund and Wyatt 2004: 3). However, “independent film’s identity as a commodity stresses its difference from Hollywood’s output. . . .This creates an arguably autonomous filmic enterprise able to represent alternative political views and aesthetic perspectives” (Pribram 2002: xiii–xiv). In a similar vein, Ortner argues that one needs to examine “the social field within which ‘independent cinema’ has taken shape and is continuously evolving under various social and cultural pressures” and that “an independent film is defined . . . as the antithesis of a Hollywood studio film,” but there is a huge spectrum within independent films (2013: 4). There have been more similarities between American and Korean independent cinema in recent years as the Korean film activism movement against “film as a commodity” weakened. But it is safe to say that Korean independent filmmaking started as part of an organized movement (film activism)—against the state and dominant commodity mode of mainstream media—while American independent cinema emerged as individualized reactions to the powerful studios. Many KIFA members constantly tried to distinguish Korean independent film from American independent film. In fact, there seemed to be significant anxiety over this distinction that was fading as my informants resorted to formulaic ways of defining what “independent” meant in the Korean context, as laid out in the KIFA Declaration. In an interview with EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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me, Cho Min-do* (the head administrator and one of the key founders of KIFA) stated, “Categorizing independent films is neither possible nor helpful. We had all sorts of seminars and debates for the past couple of years to figure this out until everyone was exhausted. The issue is like a black hole.” These debates on “independent identity,” however, were far from over. My informants at KIFA organized multiple extensive surveys on the “Identity of Korean Independent Filmmakers” for a symposium at the Indie Forum Film Festival (a KIFA-organized annual independent film festival held in Seoul) and for many other occasions. These ongoing self-examinations by the independent film community show that the issue of “independent” identity has been an increasingly ambivalent yet invested topic since the mid-1990s. As more and more independent filmmakers move to the mainstream, the boundary between mainstream and independent cinema has become increasingly blurry. The radical ideology of the Korean film movement has diminished and the conditions under which independent filmmakers now work have drastically changed. But what is nonetheless distinctive and interesting about “independent” in postauthoritarian Korea is that “independent” has existed as a single national network or a “community” as it materialized in KIFA, negotiating as a whole with capital, state, and audience.

Conflicts Surrounding t h e 19 8 0 s L e g a c y The legacy of activist films was often under intensive debate when I was doing my fieldwork at KIFA. At the “Memory of Enchantment: Retrospective on 1980s Independent Films” event organized by KIFA in March 2001, a conflict arose among the members of KIFA regarding the films that were selected. The selection was made by several KIFA Central Committee members without seeking other members’ opinions. Later on, after the screenings, some members argued that the selection was made by people who “apply present criteria to past works.” The critics claimed that the 1980s films that fit into the newer “artistic” trend in the independent film circuit were selected over what were in 2001 perceived to be realist activist films. “The crude type might seem archaic now, but at least they were ‘alive’ when they were seen back then. The artsy ones were not viable EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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when they were produced in the 1980s, and did not draw public attention back then,” claimed Lee June-sang*, the head of the documentary group United Labor Film Collective*. None of his group’s fifty labor documentaries that were produced since 1988 were chosen for this event. In addition to controversy regarding the selection of the films for the retrospective, the legacy of “communal production,” a prominent feature of the 1980s film activism, underwent scrutiny when the head administrator at KIFA, Cho Min-do, decided to grant screening fees to a single kamdok (director) for each film.3 As I discussed in Chapter 1, communal production in the 1980s involved multiple directors or a community as a whole. Most of the films from the 1980s through the early 1990s gave ending credits to film collectives or groups, not to individuals. Granting screening fees to a single director for each film in the retrospective, therefore, was an act of reassigning authorship of these communally produced films to individuals whom the KIFA Central Committee perceived to have the most input in their production. The distribution of the screening fees and the decision about which movies to screen stirred up hidden tensions within KIFA over the issue of the 1980s legacy. Other conflicts that occurred at the retrospective were also indicators of old quarrels over the appropriation of this legacy and KIFA members’ reaction to it. At the post-screening party at the retrospective, the crowd was quite diverse. Since the event was sponsored by the Korean Film Council, officials from the council, current KIFA members, and the filmmakers whose films were featured in the retrospective were sitting side by side in the restaurant. People drank profusely that night, celebrating the event and meeting old friends and colleagues. Some of the former activist filmmakers had made it big in Korea’s mainstream film industry— especially Jung Jin-man*. Jung, who was part of the team that produced and directed a landmark activist film, became a successful producer. His most recent production became one of the biggest blockbusters in recent years, drawing more than eight million filmgoers. He was also serving as a board member in the Korea Film Council, which sponsored the event. The post-screening party was marked by its celebratory mood. This type of encounter between old friends was nothing unusual, though, since some of the same people at the party who were connected through the activist network in the past were now networking through the Film Council, government film policy committees, numerous film festival EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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boards and award committees, and industry-driven organizations on a regular basis. Everyone at the event seemed excited, since this was the first retrospective featuring a huge selection (sixteen films) of the activist films from the 1980s and early 1990s. The Film Council sponsorship also meant that the films of the 1980s had gained official recognition. After a while, Jung Jin-man said that he had to leave early, and insisted on paying the bill for the party. People seemed to be happy about it as they kept partying. After Jung Jin-man left, a co-director from Jung’s old activist days commented, “I guess Jin-man’s really busy these days.” This short comment was followed by a cynical response, “He’s busy counting the tons and tons of money he’s made,” which ignited chuckles. This initiated more cynical responses and jokes about Jung, who arguably had become the most powerful producer in the Korean film industry. This seemingly friendly reunion, harboring ambiguous and hard feelings about “old friends,” was indicative of the tension stemming from the ascendance of some of the 3-8-6 generation filmmakers into elite film institutions and the film industry. Like Jung Jin-man, in the context of postauthoritarian reforms, people who were activists, and therefore outcasts in the mainstream media’s viewpoint in the 1980s, were suddenly featured on the covers of magazines and newspapers after being appointed to high-powered posts in the government and elite film institutions. In 2003, Ku Bon-jin*, an activist filmmaker-turned-film-critic who was also a key member at KIFA, appeared in the “culture” sections of Korean newspapers distributed nationwide. He was appointed the head of a film-related state institution, a position, he claimed in the article, to be “equivalent to vice-ministers in the cabinet.” He was a legendary leader in the activist filmmakers’ circuit in the 1980s, and was once arrested for producing and distributing an activist film among peasant communities. In 2000, when I started my preliminary research, Ku occupied a corner space in the cramped KIFA office, editing KIFA’s quarterly journal. Although he was a wellknown film critic writing for some popular film magazines and newspapers at the time, his recently-earned Ph.D. in film studies was not so useful in getting a teaching position at a university. A KIFA member who knew him well personally commented, with a sense of sympathy, that although Ku was an extraordinary bright scholar, his future in academia was “doomed” because “he’s branded as a red, and therefore not EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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taken seriously by his professors.” Two years after that conversation, in 2002, Ku did locate a teaching position at a film studies department at a major university. The next year, he resigned from the teaching position to take the position of president of a state film institution. Although I was shocked to see his face covering the whole section of a nationally distributed newspaper, to an extent I knew that I should not have been too surprised. Although Ku’s case was extraordinary, it definitely was not an exception: Ku’s peers, former members of the Seoul Film Collective— I explored the development of this group in Chapter 1—who had not debuted as directors were working at major international film festivals in Korea by the early 2000s (including PIFF, the Chŏnju International Film Festival, and the Puchŏn International Film Festival) as head programmers. Ku and his peers’ move into the mainstream paralleled the 3-8-6 generation’s shift to the center of mainstream politics. In the news article, Ku announced, “I am not going to make many promises, but I can promise you one thing; I will be the kkaekkŭt’an [incorruptible/clean] leader of the organization,” alluding to the past bad publicity about the film institution. Although the 1980s legacy had been challenged and KIFA practices that were inconsistent with earlier ideas and practices of independent filmmaking had emerged, the independent film community’s moral authority became the basis for accessing power.

The Ascen da nce of the 3-8-6 Gen er ation How was the discourse of the 3-8-6 generation mobilized and enacted in order to bring about the postauthoritarian reconfiguration of Korean society? A comprehensive presentation of the past anti-military democratic movement, which encompassed a vast ideological spectrum, is not within the scope of this section. Instead I focus here on how the 3-8-6 generation discourse was appropriated by both the postauthoritarian state and the participants of past democratic movements during Kim Dae-jung’s administration (1998–2003). The legacy of the 1980s social movement came under the spotlight after the 1998 inauguration of Kim Dae-jung. After thirty years of military dictatorship, followed by “incompetent and corrupt” civilian rule under Kim Young-sam (1993–1998), the election of Kim Dae-jung, who EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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was once put on death row by military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, gave new meaning to the legacy of the 1980s social movements. Kim Dae-jung effectively mobilized the discourse of the 3-8-6 generation in response to the failure of the preceding civilian government, which proved to be not much of an improvement over the military regimes that preceded it. In an attempt to recuperate political legitimacy, which the previous regimes had lacked, Kim Dae-jung’s government relied heavily on the symbolic value of the resurrection and redemption of the oppressed (i.e., the “3-8-6 generation,” or “democratic generation”). Feminist scholar Kwon Insook, who belongs to the 3-8-6 generation herself, says that “today, in 2000, members of this 3-8-6 Generation . . . symbolically or realistically see themselves and are seen by many older and younger South Koreans as progressive, politically active, and representing liberal values, including democracy and civil society” (Kwon 2000: 177). In the Kim Dae-jung government’s framework, the 3-8-6 generation was perceived to be a main engine in correcting Korea’s derailed modernity, as exemplified in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Set in this context, the 3-8-6 generation label that was once a stigma in mainstream Korean society turned into a symbolic and social resource in accessing and consolidating power. The generational discourse unfolded in diverse political settings. As stated in the Introduction, Kim Dae-jung and his “people’s government” initiative to restore “honor to the victims of the ’80s anti-military democratic movement” emerged in the summer of 2000. In August 2000 both the Committee for Democratic Movement Activists’ Honor-Restoration and Compensation and the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths were set up to recover “the honor of the pro-democracy activists who were victimized in the past, and to procure for them compensation.” By October 25, 2000, it was reported that “8,395 people who suffered personal hardships as a result of their involvement in pro-democracy movements have applied for the restoration of their honor and compensation” (Korea Herald, Oct. 25, 2000). By the end of 2001, the committee had officially recognized 2,929 people as “victims of government suppression and pro-democracy movements” (Korea Herald, Dec. 27, 2001). President Kim Dae-jung seemed to be pushing for recognition of the “pro-democracy fighters” (Korea Herald, Dec. 27, 2001). During his decades-long struggle as an opposition leader, the former political prisoner, who carried the burden of being labeled “a red,” endured an EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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assassination attempt, a kidnapping, repeated arrests, beating, exile, and the death sentence—announced on September 13, 1980, after a staged trial convicted Kim of inciting the Kwangju Uprising—before he finally won the presidency, at the age of 73, in 1997 (CNN, June 12, 2001). It was reported that when Kim Dae-jung was awaiting execution on death row, soon after the Kwangju Uprising, he wrote anguished letters to one of his sons, apologizing that no parents would allow their daughter to marry him and that no business dared give him a job (Goldstein 1999: 77). An American reporter notes the dramatic turn of Kim’s fate: “That will no longer be a problem. Now that Mr. Kim has been elected President and is preparing to move into the Blue House, the presidential mansion at the foot of a mountain in Seoul, everybody wants to befriend him and his family” (New York Times, Dec. 19, 1997). When he was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2000, the Western media often described him as “the Nelson Mandela of Asia.” His was a story of great suffering and redemption. By recognizing other victims of the “democratic generation,” Kim was extending his redemption narrative to that of a national scale despite all the criticism surrounding his half-successful attempts to reform the post-IMF Korean economy. At the time, the term “Asian financial crisis” was often replaced by an emic term, “IMF crisis,” as the IMF intervention led to a sharp “increase in unemployment (about 1.5 million people) and lent itself to another acronym: ‘I’M Fired’” (Shin 2005: 210). Public dissent was on the rise. President Kim’s efforts to recognize the victims of the democratic movement, however, were appreciated even by those who felt betrayed by the glacial pace of governmental reform following the installment of Kim’s “people’s government.” Mun Pu-shik (2000), an activist-turnedpoet who was imprisoned for setting fire to the American Cultural Center in Pusan in 1982 to protest against the American complicity in the Kwangju Massacre, noted that he was deeply moved by the news article on President Kim’s remarks to the board members of the Committee for Democratic Movement Activists’ Honor-Restoration and Compensation: I read in the morning paper that President Kim said that “people who participated in the democratic movement were tormented and oppressed, being named communists, insurgents, and rioters. . . . Now it is time for a new historical evaluation and retrieval of their honor. . . . The meaning EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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of our work lies in the fact that the torment that was inflicted by the state will now be lifted by the state.” After reading this phrase, I felt so overwhelmed with emotion that I had to stop reading the article. President Kim continued by saying that “I wanted to set an example that people who have been leading a righteous life will not always end up as losers, and that the true value of such a life will be recognized and admired by history and one’s fellow citizens.” This phrase was much more beautiful and moving than Kim’s inaugural speech. . . . If not Kim’s words such as “As a victim myself, a thousand emotions well in my mind,” his intense experience of the past as a person placed on death row by Chun’s regime resonated more deeply with the tormented people who endured the dark military era. Kim’s own suffering lent weight and sincerity to his words. (2000: 308–9, emphasis mine)

Kim frequently evoked the 3-8-6 generation and the Kwangju Uprising, the event that marked the birth of the 3-8-6 generation’s political consciousness and its anti-American sentiment. In conjunction with Kim Dae-jung’s determination to incorporate the 3-8-6 generation’s chŏlmŭn pi (young blood) into his Millennium Democratic Party and people’s government, there has been an increasing recognition that the voting power of this generation had a substantial influence upon the results of the April 13, 2000, legislative election. It was claimed that there was an imminent need for “young blood” in every sector of society to carry out the democratic reform that had been promised by President Kim but had been slow in coming. The proliferation of the 3-8-6 generation narrative could be observed in most of the news coverage of the April 13, 2000 election, as Kim Dae-jung’s Millennium Democratic Party candidates’ past involvement in the 1980s student movement was constantly foregrounded during the campaign. For instance, the very first sentence of the introductions of candidates who were featured in a local magazine focused on their participation in the 1980s social activism: one candidate had been the president of a university student association, then an obvious indication of one’s “movement background,” and the other candidate had been the president of Chŏndaehyŏp (National College Students Association), then the base of a student movement with a prominent pro–North Korean tinge (Newsmaker, Mar. 23, 2000). The 3-8-6 generation narrative was even appropriated by conservative politicians. A Grand National Party candidate, Won Hee-ryong, was noted to have taken part in the labor movement when he was a student at Seoul National University. “In addition to his individual merit,” reads the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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article, “while candidate Won was in school, he worked at a metal processing factory [as a labor activist] for approximately 2 dollars a day and was once sought by the police.” The title of the article, “Young Blood, Rise as Invincible Warriors,” alluded to one of the idioms most used by the student movement circuit in the 1980s: chŏnsa (warriors). The broad appeal of the 3-8-6 generation showed that activism sells. The abuse of the term “the 3-8-6 generation,” however, did not go unnoticed by local critics. Mun Pu-shik (2000) betrayed his doubt of “the feast of tempting words” when he witnessed the continuing dire reality of political prisoners veiled under myriad promises. He did not hesitate to point out the “exaggerated language of hope” that was disseminated by those who “appropriated and monopolized” the discourse of the 1980s movement. He warned that this monopolization would “pollute our memory of the past.” In a similar vein, the political scientist Cho Tae-yŏp (1999) expressed his skepticism of people who were “selling the 1980s movement to get into politics.” Sociologist Kim Dong-chun (1999) turned around the term “young blood” and critiqued the hopelessness of a “vampire state” that was in need of a serious “blood transfusion” to survive. As Linda Lewis (2002) argues, the legacy of the 1980s social movement had gone through drastically different conceptualizations, and had been capitalized on and utilized as “the symbolic center of the now successful democracy movement.” The following section addresses the changing environment in which independent filmmakers made their films as the “blood transfusion” rhetoric reverberated in the film sector.

Changing Conditions KIFA’s relationship with capital, the state, and film-screening venues has been changing since the mid-1990s. Returning to Chris Berry’s dichotomy (the commodity mode vs. the socially engaged mode), how can these new conditions be characterized? Especially with the influx of conglomerate capital into independent filmmaking, the commodity mode seems like a suitably descriptive term. Based on its moral authority, however, KIFA has been negotiating, as a kind of a power broker, the extent of the changes that affect independent filmmaking.

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Capital The “gold rush” of Korean conglomerates (Samsung, Daewoo, Haetae, Pyŏksan, Hanbo, SKC, Jinro’s G-TV) into the film industry started in the early 1990s. Traditionally, investors made money based on receipts from local theaters. This traditional sector collapsed in 1988 when the ban on the “direct distribution” of Hollywood films by American distributors was abolished. The following explains why the chaebŏl (South Korea’s family-owned industrial conglomerates) decided to enter the film business: Three of the largest chaebŏl—Samsung, Daewoo and LG—not only manufactured VCRs for domestic and international markets, but also operated video divisions to provide content for this lucrative industry. Video-cassette rentals and sales became an increasingly large and profitable industry since its launch in the mid-1980s. In 1991, however, Hollywood branch offices such as Twentieth Century Fox started their own video labels within Korea. With many of the biggest Hollywood films now taken by the branch offices, increased competition for the films which remained led to a sharp rise in the prices paid for video rights, Korean films included. . . . Given this situation, conglomerates such as Samsung and Daewoo found that, by investing in films at the production stage (and sharing some of the project’s risk), video rights could be obtained much more cheaply. Similarly the scheduled launch of cable television in South Korea in 1995 promised another opportunity to earn profits from film-making. (Paquet 2005: 37)

In 1994, more than 30 percent of Korean films were produced with chaebŏl capital, and from 1995 to 1996, most of the top-ten box office hits were funded by conglomerates (Yi Dŏk-haeng 2003: 42–43). The chaebŏls, which were new to the film industry, treated film festivals as talent markets, places that opened up opportunities for independent filmmakers to showcase their work.4 As I mentioned earlier, Samsungsponsored independent film festivals should be understood in this context. Conglomerates’ rush into the film/video industry, however, was short-lived, especially after they were hit hard by the Asian financial crisis (KIFA 2000: 77). Except for Samsung, all other companies pulled out of the film and video industry (Yi Dŏk-haeng 2003: 42–43). Many of the chaebŏls exited the film industry after the IMF intervention stressed that “unneeded subsidiaries” of chaebŏls should be eliminated. However, starting from 1998 there was a huge influx of EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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venture-capital as “a boom in the local KOSDAQ stock market left many of the companies with excess capital to invest” (Paquet 2005: 42–43). For venture capital, investing in film was attractive because first, “compared to other forms of venture-capital investment which, typically, take four or five years before producing any monetary return, film offered the opportunity to earn back profit on an investment in about a year”; second, after the success of “Korean-style blockbusters” in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the film industry was considered a “growth industry”; and lastly, the Kim Dae-jung government “encouraged venture-capital companies to set up special funds to be used for film production, and through semi-state agencies made investments itself” (Paquet 2005: 43). The following story shows how KIFA, as a “community” with a strong activist legacy, negotiated this influx of capital and acted as a power broker to distribute money and resources. In 2002, MJ Entertainment*, a subsidiary of a chaebŏl company, promised to grant 30,000,000 wŏn ($24,000) to two selected KIFA members each. Some discontented KIFA members said that this “deal” resulted from a lengthy discussion between MJ Entertainment and KIFA’s Funding Committee, which was loosely composed of the chairman, Kim Dong-won; the administrative director, Cho Min-do; and the senior film activist/editor of the KIFA quarterly magazine, Ku Bon-jin. According to those who were part of the KIFA’s Funding Committee, MJ “wanted to show off” its prosperity and build a “brand-name” in the film industry by supporting new directors. Businessmen from MJ first approached KIFA and suggested launching a “MJ Short-Film Festival.” Kim Dong-won and the members of the Funding Committee advised against this on the grounds that film festivals had become “ubiquitous,” and a small film festival would not be enough to highlight and promote MJ’s brand-name. The Funding Committee insisted to the MJ representatives that there was a better way to maximize MJ’s investment. It recommended establishing a new fund for independent films, and MJ accepted the suggestion. In the accounts of these negotiations, one of the Funding Committee members emphasized that KIFA was a “well-deserving beneficiary” of this kind of funding. He also added that MJ’s choice of investment in KIFA was a “well-chosen strategic move” because of “KIFA members’ involvement in the 1980s democratic movement.” He pointed out that MJ could achieve a desirable brand-image, i.e., a company interested in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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konggongsŏng (the public interest) by investing in an organization that “advanced Korean democracy.” This dialogue between KIFA and MJ Entertainment shows how KIFA negotiated and obtained private funding based on its symbolic connection to the past. The moral authority of KIFA senior members such as Kim Dong-won and Ku Bon-jin had become a powerful means to garner resources in this case. KIFA was represented as an organization with “entitlement” (“well-deserving beneficiary”) as it was imagined as a “community” sharing a common legacy of activism. That KIFA as a “community” negotiated the influx of capital did not preclude internal debates over the funding since the method of distributing the money, in the eyes of some KIFA members, challenged the very basis of the sense of KIFA as a community. Some KIFA members complained that the deal was made without making the details explicit and transparent to KIFA members. The establishment of the MJ Fund, and in particular the criteria for receiving such funding, became hotly contested. The public announcement of the fund by KIFA stated “MJ is looking forward to supporting feature films, animations, and documentary films that can be theatrically released and compete with status quo films.” This ignited heated debates among the KIFA members on-line and off-line. Jang Jung-gu*, an opponent of the fund and a well-known documentary filmmaker in an activist documentary group, the United Labor Film Collective*, was furious with the announcement. On the KIFA website, he disputed terms such as “theatrically released” and “compete.” On the message board of the website, he pointed out, “Does this mean that films that are not intended for theatrical release and are not interested in competing with status quo [commercial] films are not eligible for funding?” Jang’s message attracted a great deal of attention in the organization as the views of his posting approached 300 within a couple of day. Members, offline, talked about this issue incessantly. Although the message board was run anonymously, Jang used his last name and everybody within KIFA (and the author) knew who the writer message was. Lee Chan-gu*, a senior KIFA member serving on the KIFA Central Committee and a one-time fervent student activist, backed up Jang’s message by adding: Director Jang’s message is as sharp as a razor blade. Really, are we required to compete with commercial films? Why can’t we show films at a EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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school, at labor union strikes, or in a rural community courtyard? By and large, despite the money that is trickling down, how come we see fewer and fewer well-made independent films? Maybe the one who wrote the original announcement [for the MJ Fund] didn’t even fully understand the meaning of his own rhetoric because such [market] orientation is so widespread and has saturated our group. Of course, it could have been a conscious choice—there’s always a chance that he was trying to please MJ. But is the “carrot” for independent films nourishing our group in a healthy way?

Lee Chan-gu was questioning the very premises of KIFA’s Funding Committee. Other members expressed similar concerns that the Funding Committee was favoring feature independent films that could easily be made into “commercial films” instead of documentary films. Jang and his supporters engaged in verbal sparring on the message board with the members of the KIFA Funding Committee, and made the committee members publicly apologize and hold a meeting for all the members. In the end, nothing was resolved, and to an extent these discussions merely resulted in “further recognition of each other’s differences” according to an opponent of the MJ Fund. Kim Dong-won complained that the disagreement over the MJ Fund was “unnecessary” and that the opponents “should have known better than to accuse the Funding Committee of subscribing to blatant commercialism.” He argued that “competition” should not be equated with “commercialism/commodification” but could be extended to signify “cultural prowess.” He added that he was saddened that the “basis of understanding and a sense of community” within KIFA seemed to be eroded and that “people are creating problems without doing what needs to be done.” As seen in the discussions, the funding from a chaebŏl ignited intense debates within KIFA. Seemingly clear-cut words such as “competition” and “theatrical release” signified different things depending on one’s views. Despite this discord over funding, KIFA has been a single network through which chaebŏl and venture capital trickled down. Senior KIFA members have functioned as brokers between individual KIFA members and venture capital in search of legitimacy.

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The State: Censorship, Support, and Partnership In addition to the complexity that the influx of capital brought to the Korean independent filmmakers’ circuit, the Ministry of Culture and its subsidiary agencies played a critical role in reshaping the Korean state’s once troubled relationship with KIFA. The arrest of Kim Dong-won in 1996 brought the independent film community together in protest against state censorship. According to Cho Min-do (the head administrator and one of the key founders of KIFA), independent filmmakers at the time realized how crucial it was to make a concerted effort to deal with the censorship issue, since it had proved a problem even under civilian government. But Cho added that the desire for a stronger and more coordinated independent filmmakers’ organization also coincided with the “state’s need to have a party to have dialogue with.” Many independent filmmakers were gaining recognition among the Korean public through local and international film festivals and through their resistance to censorship at film festivals (including the Indie Forum, in which Cho Min-do was involved as a main programmer).5 Censorship scandals, in turn, only created bad publicity for the government, which did not have an official channel of dialogue with the independent filmmakers’ community. The need to organize “scattered independent filmmakers,” therefore, came from without as well as within. In this context, the Ministry of Culture and the Film Council started proactively suggesting opening channels of communication and provided public funding for KIFA. Although key members of KIFA claimed that protesting state censorship was a common denominator of all KIFA members, it was clear that there had rarely been complete unity on how to protest against state censorship. In fact, censorship has been a divisive issue among the members of KIFA. Under Park Chung-hee’s revised Motion Picture Law in 1973, filmmakers were required to submit screenplays for initial approval and a finished print after the final edit to the Ministry of Culture and Information (Lent 1990: 137; Paquet 2009:14). By the late 1980s the Korean Public Performance Ethics Committee, a civil organization subsidized by the government, was created (Lent 1990: 137), and although some measures were relaxed, the committee still held the power to require submission of scripts before the start of shooting and impose “editing of a film at will after its completion” (Paquet 2009: 25). The committee had authority to EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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cut films under vague and arbitrary circumstances including “when a film impairs the spirit of the constitution and the dignity of the state” and “when a film impairs social order and morals” (Paquet 2009: 25). The independent film festivals that the members of KIFA were deeply involved in, including the Indie Forum, originally refused any type of censorship. Film festivals, although exempt from the strictures of the standard censorship process imposed on all theatrically released films, had to undergo ch’uch’ŏn shimŭije (selective censorship).6 This meant that the censors examined the synopses of the films submitted to film festivals. The final products (films) of the festival submissions were not subjected to the censorship board’s examination, unlike general commercial films released through regular theatrical chains. In short, the censorship board was much more lenient with festival films than with theatrically released films since the former were not released to the general public. A programmer at the Indie Forum commented, “The censorship board is making decisions on the basis of the film festivals’ reputation and credentials.” In most cases, film festivals could get away with screening whatever was submitted unless they were publicly known controversial films. Unlike bigger film festivals such as PIFF and the Puchŏn International Film Festival, KIFA-organized film festivals such as Indie Forum at the beginning refused any form of censorship (including selective censorship). These independent film festivals, however, gradually agreed to accept selective censorship to obtain access to theaters. For instance, the Indie Forum, which started in 1996, did not undergo state censorship until 1998. In the meantime, it was deemed an illegal film festival and was only held at university outdoor theaters. In 1997, the Indie Forum Film Festival did convince a small art film theater in Seoul to hold the festival, but was later closed down by district officials. The festival staff confronted these officials but to no avail. The consequences of this confrontation were grave since the festival had to be relocated in the middle of the screenings and the theater that agreed to hold the festival was shut down by the district government. In 1998, the Indie Forum festival committee decided to accept selective censorship. The response to this decision was divided. Although most independent filmmakers decided to go along, some KIFA members pulled their submissions from the festival in protest. The United EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Labor Film Collective and Docu Purŭn, two of the documentary groups at KIFA, refused to be part of any film festival that accepted any form of censorship, although later on they relented. As seen in this censorship case, because KIFA relied more and more on film festivals as a major venue—although some KIFA groups still used “old” distribution networks based on film activism—KIFA was under great pressure to accept Ethics Committee censorship. Even though some KIFA members believed that the only thing that distinguished the independent film circuit from the rest of the film industry was its refusal to accept state censorship, they had to acquiesce to selective censorship in order to participate and show their work to the public. The following story also concerns KIFA’s shifting relationship with the state. I met Kim Dong-won for the first time at the Korean Independent and Short-Film Festival in December 2000. As I noted in the Introduction, as one of Korea’s most prominent video activists and chairman of KIFA, he has been an “eldest brother” figure in the organization. I first talked to Kim at one of the receptions after the screenings at the Korean Independent and Short-Film Festival, and Kim and I discussed changes that had occurred after the election of Kim Dae-jung. According to Kim Dong-won, since May 1999 the film festival was, in fact, funded and sponsored by the Korean Film Council, a semi-governmental body, which had gone through radical restructuring—its predecessor organization had been deemed a “parasite” of the former authoritarian regimes. This film festival reflected the aftermath of the reform of the Korean Film Council under the Kim Dae-jung government. The new Film Council merged the Youth Film Festival and the Gold Crown Film Festival, which had been held for amateur films and commercial films throughout the preceding twenty-four years, and renamed the new festival the “Korean Independent and ShortFilm Festival” to accommodate KIFA. Although the festival was fully funded by the Korean Film Council, it was known to be run “autonomously,” organized and administered by KIFA’s staff. Some members of KIFA thought that the festival reflected a “clumsy coziness” between KIFA and the Korean Film Council. The new Film Council’s take on KIFA was reflected in the words of the council’s chairman, Yoo Kil-chon, in a congratulatory speech at the opening ceremony of the festival: EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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This festival is very important to the Korean Film Council. Why? You only have to look at other developed countries’ independent films. You can discover auteurs’ spirit and passion for experiment in independent films, and they are what drive the progress and development of a film industry. We started funding independent films, short films, and student films this year. I’m still being criticized by other committee members and government officials for wasting tax money on this festival. But the Film Council will keep supporting the festival because we understand that you [gesturing at the independent filmmakers] are the foundation and the “face” of the Korean film industry.

When speaking with me that evening, KIFA’s chairman Kim Dong-won commented on Yoo’s speech. He expressed discomfort at the festival being described as the “foundation and the face of the film industry.” Quoting Deng Xiaoping’s maxim about “black cats and white cats,” Kim asserted that KIFA could maintain its independence from the state despite receiving support from the state. Regardless of the source of the funding, KIFA members can make what they want, Kim argued. He continued talking about the transformation of the film institutions in Korea after the election of Kim Dae-jung. He argued that the Film Council used to be this unimaginably conservative and crazy place. . . . There are still struggles inside it. Each faction won’t recognize the other. Right now, the committee consists of six members, three from the reformist faction, two from the conservative faction, and one who is neither. It has definitely changed as you can see. The balance has tipped in favor of reform.

Despite the gap between Kim Dong-won’s and the Film Council chairman’s perspectives on what “independent” meant, there was a strong sense of alliance between the two as Kim stated above. He felt that working with the new Film Council was critical to supporting the reformist forces within the Film Council. Ahn Hong-gun*, a former member of the Seoul Film Collective and a member of the Central Committee at the Film Council at the time, passionately stated at a policy meeting at KIFA that “people with a reformist mindset should use this rare political space to implement as many reasonable and progressive film policies as possible because this rare chance and open democratic space might shrink when the Kim Dae-jung presidency ends.” As seen above, despite the discord over the issue of state censorship, KIFA and the state—through semi-state film institutions—formed a EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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symbiotic relationship based on their need for partnership in the new era. Most of the structural changes that were made under Kim Daejung’s government are still in place a decade later (as of 2013) although some met challenges under the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations.

Venues Compared to protest sites and the makeshift exhibition spaces where activist films were shown in the 1980s and early 1990s, since the late 1990s independent filmmakers have found screening spaces predominantly at high-brow exhibition spaces run by chaebŏls and big corporations. Samsung and LG, two of the biggest conglomerates, were already engaged in such activities. The Samsung Foundation of Culture, which was established in 1965, has been running three art galleries (the Ho-Am Art Museum, the Ho-Am Art Gallery, and the Rodin Gallery). Samsung opened a new museum called Leeum (a combination of the family name of the chairman, Lee, plus museum) in 2004, featuring three art galleries designed by “three internationally acclaimed architects, Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel, and Rem Koolhaas,”7 spending approximately $130 million on construction (Hankook Ilbo, Oct. 10, 2004). Hyundai and LG also built enormous “culture centers” where large-scale performances take place. The common wisdom among my informants was that chaebŏl moguls usually marry women with degrees in fine arts or send their daughters to art schools so that these women in the family can take care of the art galleries funded by chaebŏl. This was certainly the case with the encounters that my KIFA informants had. KIFA gained stable exhibition space at Art Zen*,8 run by the daughter of a major chaebŏl mogul, who was called “the princess” by KIFA members. The mogul’s wife was officially the director, but had recently handed most of the executive power to their daughter, the vice director. “The princess” was originally interested in modern and avant-garde art, according to my KIFA informants, but took a greater interest in converting part of her Zen-inspired gallery, which combined modern architectural elements with tradition Korean features, into a “cinematheque” (art film house). This rather obscure modern art gallery/theater, which was built in 1998, received a great deal of publicity when it decided to host the Queer EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Film Festival, whose organizers were members of KIFA. In 1999, when the Queer Film Festival was launched, the festival had an extremely hard time finding a screening space for an event dealing with a culturally sensitive topic like homosexuality. A KIFA administrator noted that at the time most theaters rejected the Queer Film Festival’s proposal. According to one of my informants, theater owners’ overall attitude at the time was “even if you throw tons of money at us, we’re not interested.” But the director of Art Zen, the “princess,” took a great interest in the proposal, and the controversial Queer Film Festival had its first run at the Art Zen theater. Afterward, this relationship with Art Zen extended to other film festivals organized by KIFA. Art Zen cut the theater rental fee by more than half (KIFA was paying 500,000 wŏn a day when the official rental rate was 1,200,000 wŏn). A trend was apparent. While forerunners of chaebŏl art galleries and culture centers focused on traditional high-brow art (i.e., fine arts and Western classical music), many chaebŏl late-comers to the art scene were seeking new niches in media art (video, installations, and art films) in which KIFA had a market share. In addition to Art Zen, which fit into this category, Art Globe*, another major theater venue that KIFA used, also fit this profile. Art Globe was a branch of Minkwang* Insurance, whose mother company is Minkwang Textile, a big exporter of fabric. According to Kim Kyŏng-jin*, an Art Globe PR person who worked as a liaison between KIFA and Art Globe, “the young chairman of Minkwang Insurance realized that while Minkwang Textile did not need serious PR since it only exported raw material, the insurance company really needed to update its image as a company that cares about culture.” In a trendy office that looked like a glass globe, Kim Kyŏng-jin, who was in her late twenties, emphasized how Minkwang Insurance needed “friendlier images to approach the public.” In addition to these art houses, there has been an explosion of film festivals which provided substantial monetary rewards as well as a stable and predictable supply of prestigious screening spaces since the mid-1990s. The old venues for screening movies by film activists, however, did not completely disappear. Although the new high-brow venues seemed to be an irreversible trend among KIFA members, some members of KIFA still thought that having this kind of high-brow exhibition space as the only venue was extremely problematic. Some of the KIFA EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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film collectives did maintain stable distribution routes based on movement networks. The United Labor Film Collective, a key member of KIFA, had an extensive distribution system within a major labor union network. The leader of this group, Lee June-sang, claimed that several hundred thousand video tapes could be instantly sold through this distribution system thanks to the strength of the labor union organizations. Similarly, Kim Dong-won’s group, Docu Purŭn, had “Docu Purŭn Supporters” who paid a fixed annual fee (around $100) to have all the videos produced by the organization delivered to their homes. The supporters, to a large extent, agreed with Docu Purŭn directors’ political commitment and vision for the future. In addition to maintaining the old distribution systems that were in place, opponents of the art house venues actively tried whisking KIFA away from completely depending on high-brow art galleries and film festivals. KIFA received funding from the Film Council in the early 2000s for a Vagabond Cinema Tour which went around the country playing KIFA films. KIFA also ran a summer open-air theater at a popular beach in Kangwŏndo, a province east of Seoul. The summer open-air theater rented a rural elementary school that had been abandoned due to massive migration to Seoul. The idea was to get a chance for KIFA films to reach outside Seoul, and this project was quite successful as of the summer of 2013. In addition to these innovative projects, the Policy Committee of KIFA explored opportunities to distribute independent films through the public library system, public access channels, and media centers modeled after American alternative media theory and practices.

Per sona l Fi l ms, N ew Au di ence s, a n d N ew Na r r ati v e Str ategies Despite internal dissent, the reality was that KIFA members were reliant on their new high-brow exhibition spaces. In these changed venues where KIFA members encounter audiences with heterogeneous political affiliations and social backgrounds, their narrative strategy on film/ video had to change. The spectators of their films was no longer a politically defiant community but individual festival-goers or a transient gallery crowd. As a new experimental filmmaker at KIFA put it, “It’s problematic to make films on the assumption that the filmmakers know EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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exactly what the spectators are thinking” at the new venues. He was critiquing the naïve assumptions underlying the socially engaged films that older KIFA members were making and promoting. Confronted with this change, many KIFA members chose to communicate their political sensibilities in very personal ways. Since 2000 many independent films labeled “individual films” (kaein yŏnghwa) or “personal/private films” (sajŏg yŏnghwa) have emerged in spite of the dominant tendency within KIFA to dismiss “personal” topics as “apolitical.” Some of the most vocal members of KIFA in leadership positions were those who categorize themselves as socially conscious filmmakers mainly devoted to making documentary films. As I noted in the Introduction, documentary groups such as the Seoul Visual Collective, Docu Purŭn, and Labor News Production, which were at the forefront of 1980s film activism, were still the symbolic center of KIFA. “Personal” films represented a departure from the “socially conscious”/“political” documentary films that were considered the “voice” and “face” of KIFA. In the past, when film activism was in full force, such a dichotomy between the personal and the political was clear, as it was critical to assign political agency not to individuals but to collective bodies. Therefore, “personal” topics could never be “political,” and the concerns of a collective entity always took precedence over those of an individual. Since those clearly delineated categories disappeared in the postauthoritarian context, the title “social film,” with its claim to political legitimacy and moral precedence, became increasingly arbitrary. On a structural level, the rise of individual/personal/private films had to do with the interpellation of independent filmmakers as individuals—not as part of film collectives—reinforced by the changing conditions including state funding, private funding, and change of venues as I have discussed. For instance, funding in the postauthoritarian era was granted to individual filmmakers, not to film groups, as the individual filmmaker became a fundamental unit in the pursuit of profit, self-realization, and recognition. Booming film festival circuits reinforced ideas of independent filmmakers as “auteurs” who possess complete authorial control over their artwork, which corresponded to the notion of a sovereign subject, an increasingly important concept in contemporary South Korea. In this sense, changing cultural notions of the social subject in contemporary Korea became reflected in ideas about independent EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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filmmaking as individualism and the pursuit of self-interest grew more prominent, especially in the context of the neoliberalization of Korean society. The following ethnographic account shows how the tension between the assertion of individualism and the critique of this tendency within KIFA was played out. Min Dong-ho*, who was in his early twenties and took the role of the “adorable little brother” in KIFA, for instance, originally joined KIFA for reasons that older members would not have predicted. Dong-ho had recently graduated from a respectable film school and was an extremely talented filmmaker who had produced two short independent films. One of these films swept many film festivals, including the Chŏnju International Film Festival, the Indie Forum Film Festival, and the Pusan International Short-Film Festival. One afternoon at the KIFA office, Dong-ho was busy calling possible corporate sponsors for the Indie Forum Film Festival that KIFA was organizing. He self-deprecating called himself “the designated KIFA’s chief fundraiser with the honed bullshit skills” for persuading sponsors to provide everything from stationery to funding to beer for independent film festival parties. Dong-ho was indeed shrewd and skilled at searching out sponsors for his own project. For his second film, which earned a name for itself in the Korean international film circuit, half of his funding came from the Film Council’s public funding, a third from a corporate sponsor (a stationery company) that he individually located, and the rest from his own pocket. As he was finishing up calling potential sponsors in the KIFA office, I asked him how he had joined KIFA at the first place. He commented in his usual self-deprecating manner: “I first joined KIFA to obtain sponsorship from a company that wanted a charitable tax deduction for its donation. For that reason, they asked that I be affiliated with a nonprofit corporation. KIFA was a serendipitous find. Of course, after I got to know the folks at KIFA, it really hit me how people here think about making films in different ways. And I thought that there are many things that I can help out with while benefiting from this place.” Although he was a popular member of this group because of his selfeffacing sense of humor, friendly baby face, and his eagerness to help out with chores around the KIFA office, tension arose from how he viewed his relationship to KIFA and the independent film circuit in general. Min Dong-ho did not belong to an independent film group or a collective, because he only believed in collaboration based on specific kinds EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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of projects and “didn’t want to be responsible for anybody else.” He also regarded his affiliation with the independent film circuit as temporary and transient. He considered his two films sŭpchak (studies) or “portfolio films” useful for his “real career” in mainstream Korean film. During our chat in the KIFA office where many members were lounging around, he mentioned that he wanted to work under Spielberg’s system in Hollywood. I do not think he meant this literally, but the point of announcing this in the KIFA office was that his final career destination was not the independent film community itself. This tension between KIFA members with an eye toward the mainstream resourcefully using the organization for their own purposes and those with “traditional activist” values erupted during a screaming match between Min Dong-ho and a senior KIFA member, Lee Changu, after a routine Saturday soccer game, which most of the KIFA male members participated in. Lee, a 31-year-old male, had been a fervent student activist in the late 1980s and then an active member of KIFA from its very inception as a filmmaker. However, he took a more serious interest in film policy reforms throughout the 2000s. Lee, a small skinny man, was usually soft-spoken, but was known for his passion for not only reforming film policies but KIFA itself, which in his eyes did not live up to its legacy. He had been serving on the Central Committee and the Policy Committee at KIFA. After the soccer match, all the members were sitting down in a circle on the lawn drinking and chatting. As people were waiting for the Chinese food they had ordered, Lee Chan-gu talked to younger members of the group (especially targeting Min Dong-ho, who represented a certain “camp” within KIFA) about the urgent necessity to consider other possible distribution routes besides the usual film festival venues. Lee essentially accused of Min Dong-ho and other members with “similar tendencies” of using their “petty fame” gained in the international film festival circuit to circumvent the prevalent doje jedo (master/ director-apprentice system) in the mainstream Korean film industry.9 The traditional master-apprentice system, which relegates newcomers to the bottom of the social ladder of any film production operation regardless of their age, formal film education, or training, was being undermined by the massive influx of foreign-film-school-educated talents, as well as venture capital that backed these new talents.10 KIFA was also influential in this regard since its independent filmmakers became a major source of new, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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sought-after talent. There was a common perception within KIFA that many independent filmmakers joined the organization just because they did not want to start at the bottom of the “miserable” doje social ladder. In his argument with Min Dong-ho, in front of KIFA members, Lee Changu contended that these “independent filmmakers” were “obsessed with ‘my personality,’ ‘my ability,’ and ‘my world’” and that “these films are not independent films but self-indulgent films.” Lee’s account showed how he was critical of Min, whose identity as an independent filmmaker was tied to his pursuit of success in the capital-driven environment. To an extent, I think, Lee’s criticism of Min is reflective of the generally negative connotation that the term kaeinjuŭi (individualism) carries in Korean society: the term “carries a greater degree of moral opprobrium than does its English gloss, for the Korean term connotes selfishness and egotistical behavior” (Janelli and Yim 2002: 300). Despite this negative attitude toward “individual tendencies” within KIFA, some “personal films” within the independent film circuit in recent years have brought up the politics of family, gender (see Chapter 4 for a more detailed discussion of the emergence of new politics within KIFA), and reflexivity (questioning the very construction of “reality” in one’s films). These “personal” films have reflected new political sensibilities that had been ignored by the “old” politics, and communicated these new sensibilities to the audience whose politics were hard to predict. Throughout this section, I have tried to show how the changing conditions in which KIFA members produced and circulated their films had been pushed by commercial forces, compromises with the state, and a movement away from “prepared audiences.” In this sense, the changing conditions that I describe in this section might point to the increasingly mainstream-oriented and neoliberal tendencies among independent filmmakers of the postauthoritarian era. But the changing conditions in which independent films are produced and circulated nowadays posit ambiguity when we ask what a film as a commodity communicates to the audience. When an independent filmmaker is no longer addressing a “prepared audience,” how does this affect how she tells her story through film? Independent filmmakers are summoned as individual social subjects in today’s changing conditions, and consequently their narrative strategy toward the audience has changed. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Film critic Nam In-young contrasts the narrative strategy of film activism with that of the new “personal” and reflexive independent documentaries. Since independent films are consumed by spectators whose political affiliation is unknown to the filmmaker, the filmmaker can no longer imagine his or her films as an embodiment of universal truth accepted by all. “Now filmmakers have to speak to the audience as equals. They cannot simply press abstract politics on the audience and tell them what should be done. Instead they are saying ‘This is my experience. What is yours?’ This is effective in bringing minority—political, cultural, and social—politics into the field of public discourse” (Nam 2003: 135–36). Nam further argues that these filmmakers using new modes of expression engage in political acts in resisting the grand universal narrative written by hegemonic film activism. In this chapter, I have examined multiple facets of KIFA’s increasing visibility in the postauthoritarian era as I traced how this former activist organization was securing a niche in a burgeoning cultural realm. In the last two chapters of this book, I expand the discussion on how the changing conditions addressed in this chapter have been appropriated by some of the independent filmmakers for new kinds of social engagement with a type of audience they had not encountered in the past. In the following chapter, however, I focus on an event which acted as a catalyst for the transformation of KIFA from a 1980s minjung cultural movement into a powerful player in the film industry.

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three

Beating Titanic Independent Filmmakers at the Helm of Cultural Nationalism

In this chapter, I examine the “screen quota movement” by which the Korean Independent Filmmakers Association (KIFA) and the 3-8-6 generation filmmakers/producers have become an indispensable part of the Korean film industry. In the late 1990s, the screen quota came into the national spotlight in Korea as a regulation that mandated Korean theaters play domestic films for at least 146 days a year, with a possible 40-day reduction to 106 days available by petition. After film protectionist measures, such as a ban on foreign distributors and a limit on the number of imported film prints, were abolished in the late 1980s, the screen quota was considered the only remaining significant protectionist policy. With a sense of urgency, the advocates of the screen quota system successfully defended it with overwhelming public support until the mid-2000s. In 2006, the screen quota was reduced from 146 days to 73 days as a prerequisite condition of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and remains the same as of 2014.1 This chapter does not cover the aftermath of this modification because its main goal is to analyze the narrative formation of the screen quota movement as a moral, national imperative during its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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period, its narrative came into sharp focus and contributed to the idea of a “Korean national cinema” worthy of protection. Since Korea-U.S. bilateral trade negotiations in 1998, U.S. trade negotiators have insisted on the abolishment or modification of the Korean screen quota system. Subsequently, mass mobilizations against American free-trade pressure erupted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the anti-free-trade screen quota movement catapulted KIFA into the center stage as defending Korean national film against a perceived “Hollywood invasion.” In this struggle, the Korean film industry had moral precedence over other industries that were fighting free-trade strictures favored by the United States. By analyzing representational strategies employed by the screen quota movement in the late 1990s and 2000s, I trace shifts in the movement as participants portrayed themselves not as pursuing self-interest or private wealth but as protecting a national cultural agenda with a “moral vision.” As a purveyor of this “moral vision,” KIFA was hurled into the forefront of the screen quota movement. Those who worked in the Korean mainstream film industry and benefitted the most from the screen quota policy were often confronted with “public disapproval and illegitimacy,” which had plagued the Korean bourgeoisie (Eckert 1993: 110). KIFA’s participation in the screen quota movement was crucial because KIFA provided the moral authority that the mainstream film industry lacked. In short, the screen quota struggle turned into a social movement with broad public support that transcended the mainstream film industry’s seemingly self-interested position. By relying on the political legitimacy and moral stature of KIFA and the 3-8-6 generation, major players in the Korean film industry have successfully molded Korean films into antiWestern cultural products. Thus, it is my intention to explore the screen quota movement as a “critical event,” one in which, as Veena Das puts it, “new modes of action come into being which redefine pre-existing categories” (1995: 6). I examine the screen quota movement in particular from the viewpoint of KIFA, which became a critical symbol of Korean cultural nationalism. I argue that through KIFA’s participation in the screen quota movement, the idea of “Korean national cinema” emerged as an object of national enthusiasm. Of course, narratives about “Korean national cinema” existed before then but developments in the late 1990s added a different, populist fervor to the term. In order to trace the formation of this EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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discourse and independent filmmakers’ role in it, this chapter is built on the narratives of members of KIFA and 3-8-6 generation filmmakers and producers involved in the screen quota movement in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

A p p r o p r i a t i n g K I F A’ s S y m b o l i c a nd Socia l Capita l In 1966, the Park Chung-hee military regime imposed quotas on imported films and required that the number of foreign films not exceed a third of the domestic films produced each year. Until 1987, the Korean government prohibited direct foreign importation and distribution of films. In that year, the South Korean authorities, under pressure from the U.S. government, lifted restrictions on direct foreign distributors such as United International Pictures (UIP).2 For nearly thirty-five years before the ban on “direct distribution” was lifted, foreign films came to Korea through a complicated process involving Korean buyers in Los Angeles and importers, distributors, and exhibitors in South Korea (see Lent 1990: 122). Another practical barrier was the tight financial control on foreign currency that remained in effect until 1986. The relaxation of barriers against foreign capital included removing price-ceilings on imported films and the import limitation of one foreign film per year for each distributor (Paquet 2009: 50). Paquet argues that with the lifting of these restrictions, “what had formerly been one of the most regulated film markets in the non-Communist world was suddenly thrown open to foreign competition” (Paquet 2009: 51). Lent notes the first wave of anti-Hollywood protests he observed in 1989: To fend off the threat of outside domination of their market, filmmakers united to persuade exhibitors not to show American movies. . . . Among their actions were the boycotting of Fatal Attraction, the first film distributed directly by UIP, the closing for a day of thirty Seoul theatres and the threat to release baskets of snakes in theatres at screening time. (Lent 1990: 122)

Despite local resistance, direct distribution was imposed, and as a result, the number of domestically produced films dropped from 121 in 1991 to 64 in 1993. In addition, domestic films accounted for only 15.9 percent EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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of overall attendance figures in 1993. Furthermore, in 1994, the Korean government abolished the regulation limiting the number of imported film prints at a given time to 16. We need to take note of the unique attributes of film production to understand the full extent of this change in policy. Thomas Guback argues that the entire production cost of a film is virtually “incurred in making the first copy. Duplicates require little additional investment, and wide distribution hastens the flow of revenue to producers who are obliged to repay loans from banks and financiers. . . . Exported prints deprive the home market of nothing, while offering the producer a larger base on which to recoup his investment” (Guback 1985: 465). We can see how lifting the restriction on the number of prints was an invested issue for American distributors and how this lift had a large impact on the Korean film industry. As Guback claims, foreign markets have become more and more essential to the “Hollywood machine”: “Hollywood . . . exports films not primarily because it has product surpluses but because high production costs have made it difficult to recoup investments from the home market alone” (1985: 465). From the 1950s to the 1970s, Hollywood made 30 percent of its money overseas, and in recent years that percentage has climbed to well over 50 percent (Klein 2003: 3). Also, by the early 2000s Asia had become “Hollywood’s fastest growing regional market” and there were predictions that within twenty years “Asia could be responsible for as much as 60% of Hollywood’s box-office revenue” (Klein 2003: 3). Hollywood’s stake in the Korean market was considered so significant that the Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEA), viewing the Korean film market as a potential “gold mine,” railed against South Korea’s protectionist policies (Yucies 2007: 11). However, under the tight regulatory framework that existed until the mid-1980s, foreign films were not able to pose a serious threat to the Korean film industry (CDMI pamphlet, n.d.). In the absence of other import regulations, the screen quota was considered the “sole critical safety net” for the local Korean film industry, which suffered from a lack of investment and a weak distribution and marketing infrastructure (Song Dong Yun 1999). The screen quota system was thus framed as an essential anti-trust regulation. Shim Kwang-Hyun (2000), one of the most ardent advocates of the screen quota system, argued that EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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maintaining the screen quota would prevent Hollywood from gaining a monopoly in the Korean film market, especially given that Hollywood was already dominant, with 85 percent of the global market.3 Since 1993, the enforcement of the screen quota system has been taken over by Screen Quota Watchers, a nongovernmental organization,4 because “the Korean government was slacking in implementing the regulation as it is,” asserted the assistant director of this NGO. This organization has monitored local theaters, carrying out on-site inspections to check if they are adhering to this regulation. It has published statistical data to demonstrate that local theaters failed to meet the quota for Korean films by an average for 48–51.7 days a year in 1993–1994.5 Reports by theaters were closely monitored by volunteers at Screen Quota Watchers, and the lapses were reduced to 12.8 days a year in 1996 and 0.3 days a year in 2002. The ongoing tension surrounding the screen quota system escalated on December 2, 1998, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in bilateral investment negotiations with the United States, announced plans to reduce the quota from 146 to 92 days. This plan, which sought to eventually abolish the screen quota system, incensed the public and especially filmmakers and producers in the Korean film industry. In 1998 bilateral trade negotiations with Korea, U.S. negotiators claimed that the screen quota was a “byproduct of the old world order” and violated the principle of free trade. The U.S. government and the U.S. film industry’s lobbying group, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), proposed investing 500 million dollars in building two hundred multiplexes in South Korea if the screen quota was reduced and finally abolished. The U.S. side also complained that, at the very least, theaters built with U.S. funds should be exempt from the screen quota (“Screen Quota Epitomizes Culture Clash,” Korea Times, Dec. 26, 1998). The U.S.-Korea Bilateral Investment Treaty was something the Korean government had been pursuing fervently since the IMF bailout, as it would boost direct foreign investment in Korea and protect its investors in the United States (Shim 2000; Mi-Hui Kim 2002). In the multilateral trade negotiations that resulted in the launching of the World Trade Organization (WTO) it had been agreed to exclude cultural products from free trade principles. In 1998, during the peak of the screen quota struggle, it was reported that there were eleven countries that had screen quota systems similar to Korea’s and that Korea was the first country EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:26 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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to discuss the liberalization of its film market at bilateral investment talks with the United States (“Filmmakers Bridle at U.S. Demands to Scrap Quotas,” Korea Herald, Dec. 5, 1998). Korean Foreign Affairs–Trade Ministry negotiators, who were eager to attract more U.S. investment, seemed ready to cut the mandatory number of days, claiming that reducing the screen quota system would attract foreign investment in the film industry. An initial wave of strikes and demonstrations against abandoning the quota system lasted two months until a government official, on January 26, 1999, announced that the screen quota would remain unchanged (Shim 2000: 1). However, U.S. negotiators stated that they could not accept this decision due to strong opposition from the MPAA. As a result, in June 1999, after a visit by Jack Valenti, the president of MPAA, the Korean government announced a new plan to reduce the screen quota to 50 days. This visit ignited demonstrations and precipitated the launching of the Screen Quota Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization encompassing various groups in and out of the Korean film industry: mainstream filmmakers, producers, KIFA, Screen Quota Watchers, and numerous civil movement organizations. The Screen Quota Emergency Committee organized and led all the protests in 1998 and 1999. During the first few days of the protest, which received much media attention, what was particularly notable was that famous Korean actors and actresses were actively involved. The media during this time were swamped by images of Korean film stars mourning their own symbolic death. A Far Eastern Economic Review article describes a scene that occurred in 1998: On a wintry day in December, a somber, star-studded funeral ceremony took place in a downtown plaza in Seoul. Dozens of South Korea’s favorite actors, clad all in black, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, carrying black ribboned portraits—a traditional way of honoring the dead. But the portraits were of themselves. The “death” the stars were protesting is a metaphorical one—that of the nascent Korean film industry. The perceived killer? A proposed government move to allow more foreign films to be shown in Korea. If that happens, they fear, a flood of Hollywood blockbusters would slowly drown domestic productions. (Jung A. Song 1999)

However, as the protests dragged on over several months, this representational strategy needed to change. In newspapers and on public website EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Figure 3.  A still from Shoot the Sun by Lyric: movie stars protesting. Courtesy of Seoul Visual Collective and CDMI.

message boards, the comments and criticism often went “astray,” said Yang Ki-Hwan, assistant director of the Screen Quota Watchers, a key group within the Emergency Committee. In an interview with me in 2001, Yang reflected on what happened during the 1998–1999 screen quota movement and said, “We [the Emergency Committee] started hearing public criticism that movie stars, carrying black-ribboned portraits of themselves, arrived in their fancy imported cars to participate in the demonstration.” People expressed their outrage and considered the actors’ behavior selfish and hypocritical. Faced with this public criticism, KIFA filmmakers and their 3-8-6 generation allies in the mainstream film industry spearheaded a new move: a mass head-shaving ceremony. On June 18, 1999, 101 people in the heart of downtown Seoul shaved their heads—a huge media spectacle needless to say. Film stars dressed in black mourning their own “deaths” moved to the background while shaved-headed, militant-looking filmmakers and their allies came to the forefront both literally and figuratively. When I asked participants about the symbolism of head shaving, the points of reference that the participants expressed varied greatly, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Figure 4.  A still from Shoot the Sun by Lyric: protest to keep the screen quota intact. Courtesy of Seoul Visual Collective and CDMI.

ranging from a Confucian text to memories of repressive secondary school years to common student activist tactics. What I understood from participants’ narratives, however, was that head shaving symbolized the precedence of the collective body over the individual as participants acting in unison.6 The head-shaving protests were organized and presented in a way that prompted the public to recall the rhetoric of the 1980s social movement. Participants in the 1998–1999 screen quota movement often combined tactics, such as head shaving, hunger strikes, and burning the American flag. These tactics were familiar since they had been deployed by the 1980s student, labor, and peasant movements. In this sense, the ideologies, languages, and practices of social activism (which I explored in Chapter 1) became a cultural repertoire from which the social actors involved in the screen quota movement selected for strategic political purposes. Evoking the symbolism of the 1980s social movement seemed to be an effective strategy when images of famous film stars carrying EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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black-ribboned portraits did not achieve the Emergency Committee’s desired effect. I suggest that the actors’ “selfish” and “unpatriotic” action of driving foreign cars while participating in the screen quota movement was perceived to have compromised the moral stance of the screen quote struggle. The movement had to be seen as something more than “securing the rice bowls” of film industry people who were merely fighting to spare the domestic film industry from free-trade negotiations (which also encompassed the agricultural and heavy industry sectors). That KIFA and other civic movement groups participated in the screen quota struggle, I argue, showed that this battle transcended the conflicts between self-interested groups within the anti-free-trade movement. KIFA’s chairman, Kim Dong-won, spearheaded the mass head-shaving mobilization. On June 16, 1999, as one of eight representatives of the Korean film industry, he shaved his head. This initial protest had occurred two days before the mass shaving ceremony involving 101 people in downtown Seoul. These eight representatives were dubbed the sŏndo sakbaldan (pioneering shaving squad), I was told. According to the accounts in KIFA’s Independent Film Quarterly, KIFA members received phone calls from KIFA administrators telling them that Kim Dong-won had issued a “draft call” to all the members (Ko 1999). According to a KIFA member, “half of the protest crowd was actually from KIFA.” Following these two events in which KIFA members took the initiative, suddenly, the shaved-headed militant-looking filmmakers came to the fore both literally and figuratively. KIFA leaders and 3-8-6 generation filmmakers also brought their “old” social movement networks into the screen quota movement, which otherwise could have been seen as the work of a commercial filmmakers’ lobby. Twenty-two civic groups, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and National Federation of Farmers, both militant social movement groups founded in the 1980s, publicly announced their support for the cause and took part in the rallies. This was made possible by the established networks of 3-8-6 generation actors, filmmakers, and producers and their relationships with those who were involved in civic organizations. I was also told that the mobilization of broader civil movement networks was assisted by KIFA members’ long-standing personal ties to these organizations, formed during their work documenting the urban poor, labor struggles, and the peasant movement. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Although KIFA found new venues, such as film festivals and art houses, civic organizations still served as patrons, consumers, and distribution networks for many of the KIFA documentary groups. For instance, some of the KIFA documentary groups, such as the United Labor Film Collective and Docu Purŭn, had sister social movement groups from which they took video production orders. For instance, the United Labor Film Collective has produced documentaries for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and has often conducted documentary classes for labor activists at the request of the confederation. As the protest unfolded, the official message in pamphlets and newsletters issued by the Screen Quota Emergency Committee focused increasingly on the issue of “cultural identity” and “national spirit” embodied in Korean films: “The screen quota system in Korea is deeply connected to the issue of expressing and preserving our culture. . . . Giving up the screen quota is giving up our future. Therefore, it must be protected for the sake of our cultural identity” (Emergency Committee pamphlet, n.d., emphasis mine); “If screen quotas are eliminated, it would be impossible to sustain the production of cultural assets such as films that have a unique Korean spirit and characteristics. We contend that films, unlike commodity goods, are irreplaceable and should be recognized as cultural exceptions as outlined in GATT” (Shim 2000: 1, emphasis mine).7 This essentialist framing was effective in garnering public support. Filmmakers of the 3-8-6 generation and KIFA’s mobilization of its symbolic and social resources in the screen quota protests’ were especially in demand in the “IMF era,” when the needs of particular interest groups were looked at with great suspicion. In the following section, I address how the new representational strategy foregrounding KIFA and various civil movement groups was effective in the context of the Korean national crisis.

IMF Blues Public support for the screen quota system merged easily with the “Buy Korean” campaign and the anti-foreign sentiment in the “IMF era.” When asked to talk about the screen quota struggle, most of my informants at KIFA reminded me that the struggle was carried out in the context of the extremely patriotic moment of the “Gold EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Collection Campaign” when people of all walks of life rushed out to nearby local banks to donate their old gold wedding rings in the context of Korea’s debt crisis. In the face of the economic crisis surrounding the IMF bailout in 1998, the Ministry of Home Affairs endorsed a nationwide campaign to collect gold in a bid to help pay off the IMF loans. The ministry estimated that individual Koreans had about 2,000 tons of gold worth $20 billion, or about a third of the IMF’s bailout fund. Chosun Ilbo, the leading conservative newspaper in Korea, reported that it had been estimated that if all the gold products in Korea were collected the country’s national debt could be repaid. The Korea Housing Bank had initiated the campaign asking people to either donate gold or have it deposited in the bank which would then make it into ingots and sell it overseas, depositing the money in dollars in the consumers’ accounts. (“Gold Collection Campaign,” Chosun Ilbo, Dec. 30, 1997)

It was also reported that “spurred by TV commercials showing Korea in a tug-of war against chaos, patriotic citizens rushed to their banks either to donate or accept terrible rates for their gold wedding rings and other gold jewelry items that are often used to mark birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and other important milestones” (Kirk 2000: 17–18). Koreans often collect gold bars or gold figurines in the shape of cows, pigs, and other animals traditionally considered auspicious as means to preserve their wealth (“South Koreans Dig Deep to Cut IMF Debt Selling Own Gold to Reduce $57 Billion Debt,” Toronto Star, Jan. 2, 1998) and a significant number of these preserved gold items were reportedly taken out of safes during this time. Although individual jewelry items that were brought to gold experts for appraisal might have been only able to make a minor dent in Korea’s $57 billion debt, the level of zeal in this collective action was noteworthy. According to Chosun Ilbo, nearly 3.4 million Koreans (23 percent of Korean households) participated in this campaign, and collected almost $2.2 billion worth of gold (“Gold Collection Campaign,” Chosun Ilbo, Mar. 14, 1998). News reports time and again compared this effort to a similar movement ninety years before to repay the huge debt the country owed to Japan, then Korea’s colonial ruler. The 1907 campaign was started by civilian leaders and received national support, and people EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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donated money, gold and other jewelry worth one-sixth of the total debt (Toronto Star, Jan. 2, 1998). Nonetheless, there were voices of dissent. Some claimed that the Korean government was attempting to shirk its own responsibility for the economic crisis by holding its citizens accountable instead, asking them to “tighten their belts” and “share the pain,” both of which became catch-phrases of the “IMF era.” It was pointed out that the main burden of restructuring chaebŏls was borne by their employees, through layoffs or slashed wages, not by the owners and their families (“Singing Just Old-Fashioned Songs,” Korea Times, Jan. 23, 1998). When reminding me of the IMF era as the context in which screen quota system garnered support, my KIFA informants did not forget to point out that the gold collection campaign was carried out with much more fervent support in impoverished neighborhoods than in better-off neighborhoods, alluding to the social chasm that still persisted and was even widening. Most of my informants unequivocally pointed out how the rich were less swayed by the patriotic cause than the poor. There were media reports that “the talk of the town is the rich-getricher and the poor-get-poorer” (“Singing Just Old-Fashioned Songs,” Korea Times, Jan. 23, 1998) and that income and tax statistics mirrored the widening income disparity between Korea’s haves and have-nots (“Recession Widens Income Disparity,” Korea Herald, Mar. 5, 1998). Although quite lengthy, the following local news article reported extensively on this disparity and effectively captured what was evident to my family members, friends, and informants in Korea, but not reported in the mainstream Western media at the time. The IMF bailout, as experienced by local Koreans, accelerated the polarization of socioeconomic classes: IMF blues hover over the country. The specter of widespread unemployment is haunting most salaried workers as a number of companies, small and big alike, face mounting difficulties owing to credit constraints in the wake of IMF’s demand to keep interest rates high. . . . The ordinary people are feeling the pain of the economic troubles deeply. The Korean public is shuddering at their possible joblessness and salary cuts. . . . Then, what about the rich? No gloom! Ironically, difficult economic conditions created by the IMF blues have turned into a boon for elite, high net-worth individuals. While EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the ordinary people line up at bank counters to deposit gold rings and necklaces to help shore up the country’s depleted foreign-exchange reserves, the wealthy remain outside the whirlwind. . . . The salient feature of the “IMF era” in Korea, first of all, is that the rich, many of whom live on interest income of bank deposits, are able to garner much more interest income in accordance with the steep rise in interest rates. . . . The wealthy have lots of other things to rejoice about amid the IMF blues. The notorious traffic congestion of Seoul has disappeared on much of the city’s streets as an increasing number of middle-class commuters have abandoned driving and are using public transit in the face of skyrocketing fuel prices. (“IMF Blues Hardly Affect the Rich,” Korea Times, Jan. 18, 1998)

From accounts of the events, I gathered that screen quota demonstrations, strategy-wise, had to appear to transcend the public portrayal of the screen quota movement as a kind of interest sector in society that refused to “share the common pain” as the wealthy appeared to have done. The guidelines distributed to the activists at the Emergency Committee listed “10 Questions That Fellow Citizens Might Ask” and the effective points that the activists should make sure to get across. One of them was “Isn’t the screen quota a form of NIMBY[Not In My Backyard]-ism?” followed by “Proposed answers.” The negative connotation of the term “NIMBY,” which had been often used to describe the failure of collectivism/community due to individual or sectarian interests, was greatly intensified when stories of the disparity in the “pain-sharing” after the IMF bail-out started spreading. When asked about her participation in the screen quota movement, Kim Na-ri*, a member of KIFA who ran a makeshift film house for foreign art films and Korean independent films, commented on the intense demonstrations of 1998 and 1999. She especially revealed her discontent at having to observe movie stars monopolizing media coverage. She went on to say, “those so-called film stars are useful since they are celebrities and they get wide recognition.” But according to her, movie stars reduced the movement to the mere level of bapgŭrŭt ssawum (fighting to secure one’s rice bowl), a popular Korean phrase for self-serving acts. As I was talking to her on our way to a meeting at the KIFA office, I kept asking myself why “fighting to secure one’s rice bowl” might make one look like one lacks legitimacy in the Korean public consciousness. Isn’t this something that people whose livelihood is threatened should be doing—holding on to their rice bowls? EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Although the expressions “fighting to secure one’s rice bowl” and “NIMBY” were used to describe the screen quota struggle at various points, advocates of the screen quota argued against the application of these terms to their efforts.8 As I followed the accounts of KIFA members, I realized that KIFA and other civic groups helped make the screen quota struggle a legitimate national struggle that rose above the needs of any particular interest group. By capitalizing on KIFA’s potent symbolic connection to the 3-8-6 generation as well as its social network, the Screen Quota Emergency Committee transformed KIFA’s and civil movement groups’ activist legacy into the uniting trope of cultural nationalism.9 The public seemed to have been persuaded by the screen quota movement’s moral argument as evidenced in a poll: when the public was polled in July 1998, only 20 percent supported maintaining the protective measure. But when the same survey was conducted eight months later, in March 1999, 60 percent supported it (Lee Heon-ik 2002). The new representational strategy was clearly working.

The Logic of Scr een Quota A dvocates and “Bridging the Gap” Throughout the 1998–1999 screen quota struggle, supporters honed their logic against “free competition” and “free trade”: The advocates of “free competition” tend to claim that competition is like a game that takes place in a vacuum. They focus on the actual competition and fail to consider the conditions under which competition takes place. This is equivalent to a boxing match without taking into consideration the boxers’ weight, gender, and age, and calling the match “free competition.” (Shim 2000: 2)

Assistant director Yang at Screen Quota Watchers, who began his career at one of the cultural activist groups in the 1980s, would fire off stories, one after another, asserting how strangely the concept of free competition might play out in local theaters: In 1998, UIP’s distribution item Godzilla, whose production cost ranged somewhere around $120 million, was competing with director Park Ki-hyŏng’s movie Whispering Corridors [Yŏgo EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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kwedam, 1998]10 with a production cost of roughly one million dollars. Think about this Korean box office hit made with money literally a fraction of that used to make Godzilla. At the multiplex theater that we [Screen Quota Watchers] were monitoring, Whispering Corridors was attracting twice the audience than that of Godzilla. However, toward the first weekend, Whispering Corridors had to give up its screen for Godzilla which took up two screens at the multiplex theater. What we learned about the market economy, such as the law of supply and demand, works exactly the opposite here. What happened was that Godzilla’s distributor, UIP, threatened the theater owner that it would not provide him the next line-up that could easily be something like Jurassic Park III or Titanic II or the next Matrix, or who knows what. There are forty to fifty Korean movies being made each year, but this supply is still unstable compared to that of the Hollywood market, which guarantees four hundred Hollywood feature films a year. If the theater owner is going to be around in business much longer, who he should be listening to is quite obvious.

Yang also mentioned that the distributor for Whispering Corridors reported UIP’s strong-arm tactics to the police and took it to the media and “made a huge fuss about of it,” but no further measures were taken. Despite this kind of obstacle, Whispering Corridors became the second highest-grossing film of the year. The incident that Yang addressed was due to block-booking, a sales practice of forcing exhibitors to “rent a package of films in order to get a few desirable items” (Bordwell and Thompson 2001: 10). Such practices occur when the balance of power between distributors and theaters is tilted in favor of the former, thus making it hard for Korean local distributors to reject the B-grade American films that are paired with Hollywood blockbusters. In this regard, Bordwell and Thompson explain two strategies deployed by Hollywood distributors in the international market: Exhibitors rent films from distribution companies, and these form the core of economic power in the film industry. Distributors link filmmakers to audiences and supply exhibitors with a reliable stream of material to show. In the United States, exhibitors bid for each film a distributor releases, and in most states they must be allowed to see the film before bidding. Elsewhere in the world, distributors may practice blind-booking (forcing exhibitors to rent a film without seeing it) or even block booking. . . . The distributor’s bargaining power is revealed EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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in a simple fact: The movie theater gets a fairly small percentage of box-office receipts. One standard contract guarantees the distributor a minimum payment of 70 percent of the first week’s ticket sales, dropping gradually to 30 percent after several weeks. This arrangement isn’t favorable to the exhibitor, since films make most of their money in the first two or three weeks of release. (Bordwell and Thompson 2001: 10–12)

In response, director Park Ki-hyŏng, who made Whispering Corridors, wrote a grim and satiric futuristic scenario, published in the best-selling Korean film magazine Cine 21, of what might follow if the screen quota were abolished (“There Are Only Ghosts of Korean Films Left in the Projection Booth,” Cine 21, Dec. 29, 1998). Park starts his account by describing a theater right after a screening: “All the couples, in a flurry, rush out of the movie theater feeling embarrassed about talking to each other because they do not understand anything of the Hollywood movie they just watched. It did not have Korean subtitles!” According to this “worst-case scenario,” the local Korean film market totally collapses in 2004 after the abolition of the screen quota in 1999, and as a result American distributors decide to reduce costs by scrapping the Korean subtitles in Hollywood movies they are distributing with their unleashed power. Park also satirically describes a man named X frenetically calling his friend, who has already seen the movie, on a cell phone from a theater restroom to get the basic storyline of the film to carry on a conversation with his date, Y (both X and Y do not understand English well enough to understand much about the film). They wander off in the theater, ending up in an eerie room where a Korean movie that they have not seen in several years is being projected on the screen. There is nobody in the projection booth (implying that this is after all a fantasy), but the two youngsters are laughing and crying while being fully moved and enchanted by this movie in their native language. This satire, after all, was not too far-fetched in the sense that Mexico’s local film industry had virtually collapsed since the government phased out its screen quota as part of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). In 1998, Mexico, a country that had produced more than a hundred movies a year a decade before, made only ten movies, grossing less than 3 percent of the market (Song 1999). The Korean media widely reported this case as an argument in favor of the screen quota system (“Korean Survival Despite Hollywood Monopoly,” Hankyoreh Daily, Mar. 18, 1999). EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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This shared fear of an external threat had a unifying effect on the people in the Korean film industry, despite their varied interests. In a call for the public’s support and to mobilize them to boycott Hollywood movies, KIFA leaders and 3-8-6 generation filmmakers played a central role in the Emergency Committee, where they acted in sync with the mainstream Korean film industry. The mainstream film industry, by the way, was fraught with conflicts: the traditional state-regulated versus the nascent private sector; the older generation trained in the informal doje jedo (master-apprentice system) versus the younger directors who came out of formal film education at schools domestic and foreign; theater-owner-based producers versus “professional” producers shrewd at exploiting diverse investment channels. Although the line was not always clear-cut, by forming alliances with the younger, formally educated “reformists” within the film industry, KIFA achieved recognition as a strong partner to this new generation of filmmakers in the industry. The Screen Quota Emergency Committee laid the foundation for the launching of the New Forum, an organization of so-called reformist filmmakers and producers in September 1999. The New Forum was an organization of “new generation” filmmakers who, via the screen quota struggle, wrestled legitimacy away from the group of older generation filmmakers who had been vested with privileges and access to patronage by the prior military governments. Clearly distinct from the older generation, the New Forum presented itself as the only group capable of reforming film institutions and the film industry in the Kim Dae-jung era. Reformist filmmakers and producers, many of whom were wellknown former film activists, represented themselves as the legitimate offspring of the 1980s progressive movement. Their legitimization was made seamless through the New Forum’s alliance with KIFA and civil movement networks. KIFA, in turn, gained a strong ally, acceptance, and visibility in the mainstream film industry. Many KIFA members agreed that participation in the screen quota protests definitely embedded independent filmmakers in the consciousness of the Korean public. KIFA’s decision to participate in the screen quota struggle, however, did not come without controversy. This was strongly expressed in a conversation I had in 2001 with Song Min-jae*, Kim Dong-won’s assistant at Docu Purŭn, who had also shaved his head during the 1998–1999 struggle. Song, who had experience in both the student movement and peasant community movement, began talking at length about KIFA’s EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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participation in the screen quota struggle in the dusty office of Docu Purŭn, which was filled with video editing equipment that looked at least a decade old. From the onset, he declared that he was not interested in “going into the mainstream film industry.” Song said that the question of participating in the screen quota rallies had stirred up many heated discussions in 1998 and 1999. Some were vocal in arguing that participating did not have much to do with KIFA or the independent film circuit at large. Their judgment was that the screen quota would only affect the mainstream film industry. But the reason KIFA, as a group, took part in the anti-free-trade struggle was that most of the KIFA groups felt that for the Korean independent film circuit to grow and flourish, it needed to stand in solidarity with the industry. “Some thought that the maturation of the Korean film industry was a prerequisite for the growth of independent films, and obviously abolishing the screen quota would have impeded this prerequisite,” Song commented. “But things have changed,” he contended. KIFA’s chairman, Kim Dong-won, who had been an outspoken advocate of the screen quota movement, argued that “thanks to the screen quota protests, KIFA, in a sense, got a bigger slice of the pie in the process.” Although KIFA’s participation was not as coordinated and calculated as Kim maintained throughout and after the screen quota struggle of 1998 and 1999, the independent film circuit became much more visible to the public through the struggle and gained substantial support from the mainstream film industry.

The A fter m ath of the Scr een Quota Struggle What happened in the aftermath of the success of the screen quota movement was something that members of KIFA had not quite expected. The Korean film industry’s share of the Korean film market skyrocketed to 40 percent in 1999, 49.5 percent in 2002, and 63.8 percent in 2006 compared to 15–25 percent during the period from 1993 to 1998.11 These numbers were the highest in Korea’s history. According to the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC, French National Film Center), the market share of domestic films in other countries with established EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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film industries were, in fact, much lower than that of Korea in 2002: Japan, 27 percent; France, 35 percent; Britain, 8.3 percent; and Germany, 11.9 percent (CNC Info no. 280, quoted in Pusan Metropolitan City 2003c). According to Kyung Hyun Kim, Korea is “the only nation during the post–Vietnam War era that has regained its domestic audience after losing it to Hollywood movies” (2004: 270), a fact largely attributable to Korea’s protectionist film policies and the public support they garnered in the late 1990s. Although the market share of Korean films fell slightly from its peak in 2006 (63.8 percent) to 51 percent in 2007, 43 percent in 2008, and 48.8 percent in 2009,12 the Korean film industry’s success is remarkable, compared to other non-Hollywood film industries. Even though it was hard to draw a clear causal relationship between the success of the screen quota struggle and the renaissance of the Korean film industry, when asked about the huge transformation that occurred after the 1998–1999 screen quota struggle, local film critics and members of KIFA point to the success of the film Shiri (Kang Che-gyu, dir., 1999) as evidence that the screen quota system worked. The release of this film coincided with the peak of the 1998–1999 screen quota struggle. Shiri is an espionage film about a South Korean National Security agent falling in love with a beautiful and elegant woman who later turns out to be a brutal assassin sent from North Korea. This 5 million dollar spy-thriller broke the all-time Korean box-office record, “beating even the unsinkable Titanic” (“Balancing Tropical Fish and Mayhem,” New York Times, Feb. 8, 2002). Shiri drew 2.45 million viewers in Seoul while Titanic drew 1.97 million.13 Its competition with Titanic was closely watched and repeatedly reported by local (e.g., “Shiri Hooray,” Chosun Ilbo, Feb. 2, 1999) and foreign media (Straits Times, Oct. 4, 2001; New York Times, Feb. 8, 2002; Newsweek, May 21, 2001). Watching Titanic triggered heated debates. A fear-mongering narrative prevalent at the time claimed that if more than 500,000 Koreans watch Titanic, the ticket sales would represent a loss of dollars equal to the amount collected through the Gold Collection campaign. This alarmist call led to a boycott of the movie. The act of watching the film was certainly not regarded as simple. Despite its popularity, watching Titanic seemed to require explanations: a local film critic argued the reason Koreans were attracted to the movie despite the nationalistic sentiment against it was that the sinking Titanic was interpreted as a EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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metaphor for the Korean nation-state and a middle-class driven to the verge of bankruptcy (Song 1999). In comparison, the Korean film Shiri was welcomed with excitement. In fact, it beat Titanic at a fraction (less than 1 percent) of the production cost of Titanic. It was claimed that the production cost for Shiri was equal to the cost of producing two minutes of Titanic. In this seemingly impossible fight, Shiri became the highest-grossing movie of all time in Korea, attracting some 30 percent of Seoul’s population over the age of 15, and drawing 5.8 million viewers nationwide (Straits Times, Oct. 4, 2001). The success of Shiri in the context of the screen quota struggle was pointed out by several members of KIFA and others who participated in the struggle. According to a KIFA member who attended all the rallies and sit-ins during the screen quota struggle, there was a popular catchphrase in circulation: “Haven’t you seen Shiri yet? If you haven’t, you must be a North Korean spy!” The phrase circulated when the screen quota struggle was at its height, and it prompted participants to nudge others who had not seen it to go out and watch the film. He pointed out that Shiri was often used in the pamphlets distributed to citizens in the streets to make a case against Hollywood films that once inundated Korean local theaters. Locals raved that Shiri gave them “confidence” that Koreans could “catch up with Hollywood,” although the main criticism of the movie was virtually the same as what others would rave about: “It’s too much of an imitation of Hollywood,” commented 95 percent of the 250 students surveyed by Song Dong Yun (1999) and similar responses came up in other on-line research (Chosun Ilbo, Mar. 4, 1999). Some film critics commented that the success of the movie had less to do with the new subject matter, which had been hardly dealt with due to the National Security Law, than with the mass psychology of “overcoming the postIMF trauma.” In short, the content of Shiri did not matter as much as the fact that it was able to beat Titanic, and this victory was perceived to be a soothing balm for the scarred Korean psyche after the 1997 Korean debt crisis. Shiri went on to become a hit in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan as well as inducing investment in film production from the Korean conglomerates (Newsweek, May 21, 2001). It became the biggest box-office hit in Hong Kong for two weeks, which was unprecedented for a Korean EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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film. When released in North America, a New York Times film critic commented: The American film industry may be the world’s leading purveyor of violent action blockbusters, but Shiri, a new movie by the South Korean director Kang Je-Gyu, is the latest evidence that Hollywood does not hold a monopoly on fireballs, reckless driving and automatic-weapons fire. . . . By the time the first line of the dialogue is uttered, the dead bodies in Shiri are almost too many to count. Heads have been severed and blown off, throats slit, bellies stabbed, and all of this mayhem takes place between people who are ostensibly on the same side. The opening scenes visit an elite North Korean training camp run on brutally Darwinian principles, where you learn to kill by killing your classmates. Its top graduate is a woman named Hee, who goes off to South Korea to make use of her education by shooting various scientists and politicians in the neck. . . . Shiri, the code name of a complicated plot hatched by Hee’s colleagues, refers to a species of fish living in the streams that flow up and down the divided Korean peninsula. . . . Films like Shiri are often sold to Hollywood studios to be remade with American stars (and without subtitles). In this case, such an effort would be redundant. Shiri speaks a universal language—shattering glass hardly needs translation—that is also the native tongue of movie goers all over the world. (Scott 2002)

Despite the cynicism of his comments, the New York Times critic recognized that Shiri spoke the “universal language of film,” meaning that it shrewdly reworked familiar thriller genre conventions, and was one of the first Korean films that successfully combined Hollywood style with local content.14 Shiri also started a new jargon, Han’gukyŏng bŭlŏkbŏsŭtŏ (Koreanstyle blockbuster), which circulated widely upon its release. The production of Shiri was followed by Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyŏngbi kuyŏk JSA, Park Ch’an-uk, dir., 2000) and Friends (Ch’ingu, Kwak Kyŏng-t’aek, dir., 2001), two subsequent “Korean-style blockbusters” that broke the record set by Shiri. A news article, “Replicating the Shiri Syndrome,” claims that “the recipe for success is not just a matter of budgetary might. Rather it is a delicate task of melding the technical polish of Hollywood pictures with Korean content. For instance, the box office successor to Shiri—Joint Security Area—is the first Korean film to be shot in the Super 35mm format, a technique that only Hollywood could afford in the past” (Straits Times, Oct. 4, 2001). EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The term “Korean-style blockbusters” at the moment referred to Korean commercial films that were produced on a budget of 2.5–4.2 million dollars (the average cost was less than a million dollars in 2001) with stylistic and narrative conventions similar to those of Hollywood films. The cash flow into the film industry that Shiri initiated also brought a totally different kind of distribution infrastructure into the Korean film industry in 2001 (Chŏn 2002). Film critic Chŏn Chan-il notes that the “Korean-style blockbusters” that emerged after Shiri introduced “widerelease”—a practice used by Hollywood—resulting in one movie dominating close to 40–50 percent of screenings at a time nationwide. In the fall of 2000, my informants at KIFA were talking about the screen quota struggle in the aftermath of the emergence of “Korean-style blockbusters,” which they perceived to be an unexpected result of the struggle. Yi Sang-in, a senior KIFA member, in an interview with the KIFA quarterly magazine editor, commented, I watched Shiri on video and couldn’t go to sleep. I was drinking the whole night. On top of being extremely bored by the movie, fear . . . real fear struck me. First, I was afraid what young audiences might think after watching this movie. Youngsters are off-guard when it comes to the undertone of the anti-communist ideology heavily loaded in this movie.

Probably, his comment on the ideological impact on the younger generation was due to his occupation. Yi Sang-in, then in his late thirties, was a filmmaker well-known for directing Mother, Your Son (1991). He served six months in jail after being sought after by police and the National Security Agency for over a year in the early 1990s. He later went to the United States to study film and returned as a professor in the film program at a college located in the outskirts of Seoul. In a conversation with me in 2002, Yi also mentioned that he was overwhelmed by an enormous gap between his students, who are “apolitical,” and himself, who had “never smiled or laughed” when he was attending college, “carrying the weight of history” on his shoulders throughout his involvement in the 1980s activism. The younger generation, on the contrary, “breathe only the aroma of a stunning array of coffees and pizzas with delicious freedom” while their 3-8-6 generation predecessors sacrificed their youth braving tear gas in the streets,” Yi lamented. He said, “when I look at photos that were taken during my college years, all the faces, my friends’ and mine, were so solemn and sad. My EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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current students are naïve, like infants, while all of us in my generation were precocious megalomaniacs who perceived themselves bigger than life,” he concluded. When he described the time he showed his 1991 film Mother, Your Son to his students, he chuckled dishearteningly and said, “My students asked me if I was a cult film director.” After he commented on the impact Shiri had on the younger generation without any “historical consciousness,” he continued to express his concern: “Shiri’s narrative is that of Hollywood B movies. Two main characters, the Korean National Security agents, are sanitized like James Bond in 007. The National Security agents whom I had to deal with in real life were nothing like them. There is no sense of reality. It’s a fantasy, probably a very dull fantasy.” Yi’s concern was legitimate, considering the timing of the release. Shiri came out when Kim Dae-jung started a policy of rapprochement with North Korea. South Koreans were deeply divided over Kim’s “sunshine” policy, which initiated dialogue with the North. Shiri came out at this historical juncture, alluding to the imminent threat North Korea posed despite the facade of ongoing peace talks. Yi said that he had participated in the screen quota movement in 1998–1999, but that he felt ambivalent toward it because he was not sure if these “Korean-style blockbusters deserved protection.” I also had a conversation with a producer of Whispering Corridors, Mr. Jang*, who had been a member of the Screen Quota Emergency Committee, the leading organization during the 1998–1999 struggle. I was participating in the team effort at Docu Purŭn to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The project was to produce a digital video on the history of Docu Purŭn, which entailed recording interviews with some former members, including Jang and several successful commercial filmmakers and producers. Jang had worked in a radical political organization that coordinated film activist groups and organized big cultural events during the 1980s. He later worked with KIFA’s chairman, Kim Dong-won, in the early 1990s at Docu Purŭn, but after several years left the group to become one of South Korea’s most successful low-budget film producers. I heard, from a KIFA board member later on, that he was one of the “think-tank strategists” in the Emergency Committee during the screen quota struggle not only because his first feature, Whispering Corridors, became one of the major victims of Hollywood block-booking, but also because of his well-known “movement career.” EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Accompanied by Yim Mi-ran*, another member of Docu Purŭn’s “tenth anniversary team,” I visited his office in the early fall of 2001 for an interview. We had to wait quite a while in his beautiful office, a sizable wood-frame house that had been recently renovated, in a posh neighborhood in Seoul. Jang was running around the house like a madman tying loose strings in preparation for the release of his new film, while Yim and I were getting ready to videotape him discussing his career in Docu Purŭn. It was obvious that Jang was completely caught up with the new movie he was producing at the moment. When I commented that the spacious house he occupied was telling of how well he was doing in the business, Jang conveyed his predicament by saying “It’s very hard to say if I’m going to stay here for long,”—“here” alluding both to the office he was inhabiting and his position in the film industry. He continued, “It’s really hard to find a theater nowadays. The only movies that are released are Korean-style blockbusters. I think the Korean film industry is seriously distorted. However, when it comes to the time when even Koreanstyle blockbusters don’t sell, I’m really going to be in trouble.” By “distortion” he was alluding to various negative aspects of the Korean film industry, ranging from the effects of its dependence on political patronage under the authoritarian regimes to the more recent hyper-commodification of the industry.15 Although he was critical of Korean-style blockbusters taking up screening space for his low-budget films, a symptom of these social ills represented in the film industry, he still thought that the success of Korean-style blockbusters was a kind of barometer of the overall health of the Korean film industry, which insured a steady investment flow. When I asked him about his participation in the screen quota movement, he bashfully smiled and said, “Well, others fought harder than I did. I didn’t even shave my head. . . . I could have dyed my hair blue though, if they asked me to,” he light-heartedly joked. The following is part of the conversation that Jang, Yim Mi-ran, and I had: Author: Why didn’t you shave your head? Jang: The method just felt too archaic. Of course I couldn’t say that while standing next to a female director who decided to shave her head for the second time. Her hair wasn’t even fully grown from the first shaving ritual several months earlier. Author: Would you still take part in demonstrations now? EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Jang: No. I’d rather correct typos in my movie script if I had that time. The 1998–99 struggle occurred in confusion, part of it being extreme nationalism. Yim: Like the Gold Collection Campaign after the IMF bailout . . . Jang: Without that kind of a context, the screen quota movement couldn’t have happened. I don’t want to fight for the screen quota to make people watch a movie like Shiri.

For Jang, the screen quota policy was both a poison and a remedy. With it, his low-budget “art films” were being pushed out by Korean-style blockbusters, the biggest beneficiary of the screen quota policy. Without it, his films had no chance of even being made, because, according to Jang, the repeal of the screen quota would lead to the total destruction of the Korean film industry. Reflecting this growing ambivalence, KIFA members’ views on the issue of the screen quota gradually became polarized. Some KIFA members who were deeply involved in the 1998–1999 screen quota protests were met with full-blown criticism within KIFA between 2001 and 2003 when the U.S.-Korea trade negotiations were resumed.16 The discussion in KIFA about the screen quota reemerged with a vengeance in March 2001, and what was interesting in this debate was the new way it was framed. In the 2001 screen quota debates, a new key term, “cultural diversity,” seemed to have been more prominent than any focal terms such as “cultural sovereignty” or “national spirit” that were used in the booklets, brochures, and on-line documents published by Screen Quota Watchers (CDMI n.d.; Emergency Committee, n.d.). “Cultural diversity” seemed to be the defining concept of the proponents of the screen quota movement. Most of all, Screen Quota Watchers, which was established in 1993, changed its name to the Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images (CDMI) in March of 2000 and joined the International Coalition for Cultural Diversity. Why did this happen? Those who played a critical role in the 1998–1999 screen quota movement, such as Screen Quota Watchers, became increasingly involved in the anti-neoliberal global coalition movement in the audiovisual sector. CDMI’s concerted effort to form an alliance with the international community that opposed American dominance in audiovisual industries led to CDMI’s taking part in the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which resulted in UNESCO EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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General Conference in 2003. According to Mira Burri-Nenova, “cultural diversity” has become one of the new buzzwords in international policyand law-making. It is increasingly employed in various contexts—once as a term close to “biological diversity,” other times as correlated to the “exception culturelle” and most often, as a generic concept that is opposed to the negative effects of economic globalisation” (2009: 1). When advocates of the screen quota movement used this term, they wanted to emphasize that the movement was not simply nationalistic. In short, Koreans were not just trying to fight for Korean films. They were also defending the survival of other local film industries. Their argument was: As a whole, the globe will be able to maintain a healthier cultural eco-system with cultural diversity just as bio-diversity ensures the wellbeing of our natural environment (Cho Chun-hyŏng 2002). However, when one looks at the function of the concept in the screen quota advocates’ language, the term “cultural” only referred to a single national culture: Korea. “Cultural diversity” never meant diversity within Korean national culture and was semantically subordinated to the Korean cultural identity/sovereignty narrative. The KIFA website became a space where heated on-line debates spilled over from daily discussions of this matter among the members. Yun Bumjung*, an administrator at Docu Purŭn, protested against KIFA’s participation in the 2001 screen quota petition that was filed with the government. Yun argued: Tremendous self-examination is required when it comes to the screen quota movement. Is our viewpoint the same as that of the commercial film sector? KIFA recently co-signed the official declaration to protect the so-called Korean film industry. Does this clearly show KIFA’s orientation? We might make an alliance with the mainstream film industry, but I hope not in this slavish manner. . . . Let’s carefully rethink the actual number of independent movies being screened each year before we jump into participating in the screen quota struggle. . . . I don’t understand the KIFA committee’s recent decision to join the movement again before we even voice our views. Even when we need to form an alliance with them, differences should be stated clearly. Also, if the purpose of the movement was to promote “cultural diversity” as was stated during the struggle, why isn’t the independent film circuit granted a separate “independent quota”? Not that I’m begging for one. (March 9, 2001, www.coincine.co.kr) EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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In Yun’s account, the term “cultural diversity” took on a whole different meaning. If the earlier usage of “cultural diversity” during the height of the screen quota struggle simply pitted Korean cultural sovereignty represented in Korean films against Hollywood films, thus reducing the term to Korean national film, Yun’s usage of the term was expanded to mean different cinemas within Korea: low-budget films, independent films, and art films whose styles, narratives, production and distribution systems did not fit the norms of mainstream Korean cinema. He was arguing that the screen quota measure was not a virtue in itself since it did not guarantee “diversity” within Korean cinema. The task, then, was to request an “independent film quota,” and he conveyed a feisty spirit, declaring that he would fight for it (and not beg for it). Even Kim Dong-won expressed his view on KIFA’s website when this debate was accumulating more interest and tension: The screen quota is relevant as long as it promotes cultural diversity. When it turns into a means of securing commercial film producers’ rice bowls, it doesn’t deserve KIFA’s attention. Of course, for those among us [KIFA] who want to enter Chungmuro [the South Korean equivalent of Hollywood], it’s going to be a different story. . . . The contrast is starker than ever: Chungmuro reveals its increasing resemblance to Hollywood while the space for low-budget independent films is diminishing. In this context, we shouldn’t participate in the screen quota struggle as we did single-mindedly two years ago. It indeed was an urgent issue then, and we did participate under the cause of securing cultural pride. . . . But it resulted in the domination of Korean-style blockbusters that are so tasteless and flat. We have reached a point [where we need] to reexamine the meaning of the screen quota and deliver a wakeup call to mainstream filmmakers by our refusing to participate in their selfserving acts. . . . Thus, the target of our fight should also be reexamined: It should not serve only the Korean film industry, per se. The target should be the Bilateral Investment Treaty with the U.S., which would intensify economic dependency. (Mar. 6, 2001, www.coincine.co.kr)

As Kim was pointing out the irreconcilable difference between the commercial sector and KIFA, a difference that was muted in the 1998–1999 struggle, he was also alluding to the disparities among KIFA members. The differences within KIFA might have existed before the 1998–1999 screen quota struggle, but some KIFA members feel that it has intensified since then. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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For instance, Lee Chan-gu, an independent filmmaker who was a fervent student activist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, notes that the screen quota struggle removed the “psychological barrier” between KIFA members and the mainstream film industry. Lee sighed and lamented that independent filmmakers make one or two films before they move into the “mainstream” and that “there are very few who even bother making three or four films in the independent film circuit before they go mainstream these days.” The conversation took place in the KIFA office right after he came out of a long KIFA Central Committee meeting whose agenda that day was to decide if the head of the Central Committee, who had recently received an offer to direct a big commercial film, should resign. Lee said, “With the illusion of progressiveness projected by reformist mainstream filmmakers during the screen quota struggle, KIFA members might feel fewer pangs of conscience than they used to when they join the mainstream.” The boundary between these two groups, according to him, had become blurry. Lee added that the screen quota struggle marked the moment when the rupture in KIFA’s identity as a group was revealed, making visible the differences between those who might benefit from the screen quota and others who might never benefit. The emerging dissent surrounding the screen quota movement in KIFA, a one-time left-wing organization in transition, deserves further exploration as KIFA members’ increasingly skeptical views on the discourse of “protecting the national film industry” challenged the narrative of nationalism which once bridged even seemingly irreconcilable gaps in those who make films. The emergence of Korean-style blockbusters led to the realization that the cultural imperialism from within is as big a threat as that from without. With the irritating but inevitable question of “How do we fight cultural imperialism without emulating it?” still lingering, the evolving narratives of KIFA members reflected the emerging cracks in the dichotomy of inherently virtuous Korean cultural nationalism vs. Hollywood’s threatening cultural imperialism. The framework of cultural imperialism assumes national/cultural autonomy/sovereignty as its conceptual pair. But there is always the problem of equating “national culture” with the industry in power, and the postShiri discussions within KIFA articulated this problem. In the later screen quota national debates and struggles between 2000 and 2006, however, most of the informants who said that they would not EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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support the screen quota movement ended up supporting it regardless of their reservations. In the face of the American attempt to abolish or weaken the screen quota system, the majority of independent filmmakers came together to support the system. Although they told me they could not support the screen quota system after what had happened post-Shiri, they still participated in petitions and rallies to stop the U.S. attempts to have the screen quota reduced. Through the screen quota struggle since the late 1990s many independent filmmakers grew closer to the mainstream and the transition from the independent camp to the mainstream became much easier. This change polarized KIFA members regarding the issue of “internal cultural imperialism,” as many members saw their future in the mainstream while others were increasingly critical of films that were considered the main beneficiaries of the protective system. Whenever there was pressure from the United States to open the Korean film market, independent filmmakers and mainstream filmmakers, reacting to the threat of “external cultural imperialism,” formed a united front. As one of my informants stated, for many independent filmmakers, a Korean independent film cannot exist in a vacuum—such a film could not survive without a local market, venue, and audience, and hence independent filmmakers felt that their fate was tightly connected to the screen quota system.

In Search of Legitimacy Throughout this chapter I have examined how KIFA’s symbolic capital catapulted the organization into the center of the battle to defend the screen quota system. By appropriating KIFA’s potent symbolic connection to the “democratic generation”—seen as purveyors of “moral privilege”—participants in the screen quota struggle represented the struggle as that which was “legitimate,” and thus transcended the specific interests of the film industry. This tactic was quite successful in forcing the Korean government to maintain the status quo in its exhibition quota system, and as a result the 1999 Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations with the United States came to a halt. This chapter has explored KIFA’s role in uniting the disparate elements of the Korean film community under the banner of cultural nationalism. KIFA’s participation filled the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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seemingly irreconcilable gaps that existed among the participants of the screen quota struggle. Carter Eckert’s observation provides important historical insights into why the screen quota struggle had to be represented as something that transcended an advocacy movement limited to those in the mainstream film industry: capitalistic development in Korea lacked an underlying historical and philosophical basis for seeing the pursuit of self-interest and personal profit as a social good. He argues that “the pursuit of personal profit has never been raised to the level of moral precept in Korea, and even today the right of private property, though guaranteed by law in South Korea, falls far short of being the sacrosanct tenet it has long been in the West” (1993: 111). Therefore, “the Korean bourgeoisie remains, despite its wealth and increasing political influence, a decidedly unhegemonic class, estranged from the very society in which it continues to grow” (1993: 96). He suggests that the birth of Korean capitalism provides a glimpse of the historical roots of contemporary Korea’s unease with advocacy groups that represent pure self-interest: “Ideas of Confucianism, nationalism, and capitalism . . . all fused in the late nineteenth-century Korean intellectual milieu to produce a moral vision of capitalist activity stressing national needs and goals and denigrating the purely private pursuit of wealth” (1993: 118). Faced with this enduring legacy of viewing the pursuit of wealth with great suspicion, the screen quota movement of the late 1990s and 2000s took the representational strategy of foregrounding independent filmmakers and 3-8-6 generation filmmakers who were purveyors of a moral, nationalist vision. Heather Tyrrell points out that some of the world cinemas do not fit into the binary categories of “Western/commercial/imperialist cinema” vs. “non-Western/non-commercial/indigenous/politicised cinema” (2008: 327). She argues that North Indian popular commercial cinema, namely, “Bollywood cinema,” does not fit into this dichotomy because “Bollywood seems both diametrically opposed to, and fiercely aligned to” Third World oppositional cinema and “Bollywood does not see itself as a minority cinema, but claims the right to be taken seriously as a commercial popular cinema” (Tyrrell 2008: 329, 333). Such an understanding is also applicable to the Korean film industry. Both are commercially viable non-Western cinemas and the case of Korean screen quota movement is a vocal argument for such a status and an articulate claim to be taken seriously as a viable commercial cinema. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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As Christina Klein points out in her insightful analysis of Bong Joonho’s films, Korean filmmakers have been successfully using “global Hollywood’s language to tell uniquely Korean stories” (2008: 874). She argues that we should pay attention to how Korean films are regaining audiences in the domestic market by appropriating Hollywood-genre conventions: “In the case of Bong’s films, if we saw only their textual borrowings from Hollywood without understanding their role in reclaiming Korea’s domestic market from Hollywood, we would be missing half their significance. Bong’s textual appropriation from Hollywood is inseparable from his material defeat of Hollywood at the Korean box office” (2008: 895). While the production of sophisticated genre films is certainly a critical factor behind the Korean film industry’s commercial success, I argue that the reasons for its success are not limited to film texts themselves. The rise of the Korean film industry was accompanied by claims to political legitimacy. These claims were formulated through social processes such as the screen quota struggle in which the Korean independent filmmaking community’s social and symbolic capital took center stage.

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four

Transforming Activist Culture Women Filmmakers and New Filmic Spaces

Kim Jin-yeol and Min Sung-mi*, two female documentary filmmakers, belonged to KIFA’s activism-oriented film groups Docu Purŭn and the United Labor Film Collective, respectively. Both film groups were central to the yŏnghwa undong (film activism) in the 1980s and early 1990s and have their roots in film activism. As described in earlier chapters, the weakening of political radicalism in the postauthoritarian Korean civilian state challenged the identity of these film groups. They nonetheless continued to convene under the banner of “independent film” groups, and flourished in a postauthoritarian environment where for the first time they won state sponsorship and elite-institutional recognition. Although structural changes—which I examined in Chapter 2— resulted from pushes from capital and the state, the transformed cultural environment also fostered new spaces, networks, and apertures in which different political sensibilities could be expressed. This chapter examines the narratives of these two independent filmmakers in order to investigate how, in the changing environment, the identity of the current independent film circuit was articulated and constructed at an individual level. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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To understand how these two female independent filmmakers navigated the newly constituted cultural terrain, I explore several questions: Why and how did they join independent film groups? What did their membership entail for them as individuals and as members of the group? Were there important similarities or differences between their paths to KIFA and those of KIFA’s senior members? How did they criticize or resist the status quo in the groups they joined? How did their critiques of hegemonic activist culture inform their representational works? I address how KIFA’s identity was articulated, reproduced, and critiqued through their eyes and show how the new cultural institutions supporting KIFA and the new spectatorship created a space for these two female independent filmmakers to contradict or challenge the communal activist subculture, which had been based on charismatic male leadership and mentoring.

N e w V i s i o n : K i m J i n -y e o l’s S t o r y “Finding a Home” In 2001, Jin-yeol, a 28-year-old female documentary filmmaker, was a new member of Docu Purŭn, one of the core KIFA-affiliated organizations that I worked closely with. This highly energetic yet soft-spoken woman with a distinctively loud laugh was the youngest among the fifteen members of Docu Purŭn. I first met her in the spring of 2001 in a Docu Purŭn documentary workshop that was open to the public. She was one of the three instructors teaching the fifteen students (including myself) taking the workshop. Our relationship developed further when we participated in a documentary study group organized by Nam Inyoung, a well-known film critic and professor of documentary films at a university in Seoul. The objective of this study group was to provide Korean documentary filmmakers the opportunity to juxtapose their work with the work of their counterparts in Western realist documentary filmmaking and to reflect on their own films. Jin-yeol, unlike some of the older male filmmakers at Docu Purŭn who were keener on the issues of Korean social activism than on documentary filmmaking as an academic subject, was the only member of Docu Purŭn who participated in this study group. She was well versed in the scholarly discourse on filmmaking and was “more into art for art’s sake,” as colleagues EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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from her organization put it. This interest distinguished her from others at Docu Purŭn. She proved that point by attending numerous film festivals whose tickets and official invitations could be obtained through KIFA while most of her colleagues at Docu Purŭn passed up these opportunities. Unlike Docu Purŭn members who came to documentary film making via the social movement, Jin-yeol came to Docu Purŭn from a different background. She had majored in literature as an undergraduate at a college in one of Seoul’s satellite cities. She attended college in the mid1990s, an era, after the collapse of socialism as an alternative vision, that was often described by members of the 3-8-6 generation and the liberal media as a time of “political vacuum” filled with “apolitical kids.” The modest Docu Purŭn office—filled with functioning yet beat-up cameras and editing equipment—was where Jin-yeol and I first met. I was taking a documentary workshop at the office and had stayed late one day to learn digital editing. Jin-yeol was busy transcribing video tapes of Docu Purŭn’s leader—none other than Kim Dong-won, also chairman of KIFA. In fact, Jin-yeol was working on his documentary, Repatriation (2003), as one of his assistant directors. The office was in a three-story concrete building whose other floors were rented out to a low-income family day-care center and an auto repair shop. The narrow staircase leading up to the office on the top floor was filthy with oil stains, and garbage bags emitted a putrid stench on each floor. Although the building was located in a working-class section of southern Seoul, rent was high. Docu Purŭn would not have managed to stay there without the help of Kim Dong-won’s father-in-law and brother-in-law, the owners of the building. Around dinner time, Jin-yeol and I were chatting in the Docu Purŭn office. We had cooked dinner in the office kitchen where members stored rice, kimchi, and simple side dishes. As much as possible members tried to cook meals rather than eat out in order to save money. Our conversation drifted to her activities before joining Docu Purŭn. Jin-yeol said that she had worked for a “second-rate” news magazine shortly after graduation. In Korea, getting a top-tier journalism job was considered extremely difficult for job-seeking seniors and recent graduates. National newspapers and news stations were notorious for their elitism, discriminating not only against non-college graduates but also against graduates of colleges located outside Seoul, and/or less prestigious colleges. Due to these constraints, Jin-yeol had a difficult time finding a desirable job in journalism. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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As we were cleaning up the dishes at the grimy sink, Jin-yeol elaborated on what inspired her to quit her job and become a member of Docu Purŭn: After getting a degree in literature at a university in P’och’ŏn, I became a news reporter. I felt it was a very superficial job. Reporters interview people usually only once, rarely even twice. I would act politely with my interviewees due to my position as a reporter, but there wasn’t much human connection. This made me feel that it wasn’t for me. One day, I was watching a TV documentary on a heart-wrenching encounter between North Koreans and South Koreans at the Yalu River [which borders North Korea and China] . . .

At that time, before the 2000 South-North Korea summit aimed at fostering formal communications and easing tensions, people from the two Koreas were banned from contacting one another in any venue. However, with the influx of Korean tourists to China since the early 1990s, there were loopholes, and “success stories” had been reported. Some South Koreans secretively traveled to the Yalu River from China, and then looked for their loved ones whom they searched for clandestinely through brokers. Thus, family members who had been separated since the Korean War would meet at the Yalu River at an agreed time to look for each other. Jin-yeol passionately continued: On the TV screen, I saw scenes of North Korean women who were pretending to be washing clothes at the river while desperately looking at the other shore for their long-lost relatives from the South. When they found each other, some North Koreans would carry their children on their shoulders to show the kids to their South Korean relatives who had never seen the little ones before. The interviews in that documentary were extremely intimate. The demeanor with which the interviewer asked questions suggested a very genuine relationship with the subjects. I was so moved that I quit my job and enrolled in the school I had graduated from to study filmmaking. I also joined a documentary group at my school. My first documentary was on a handicapped woman. Due to gender discrimination, on top of the lack of a social security system for the handicapped, disabled women are much more underprivileged than their male counterparts. For instance, handicapped women usually do not get an education because their parents feel ashamed of them. The parents feel the same kind of shame toward their handicapped sons. But somehow their parental love for their handicapped sons overcomes the shame. This is not the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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case for handicapped daughters. Parents carry their crippled sons on their backs to school, but usually handicapped daughters are hidden at home by their parents. The parents simply do not invest that effort in girls.

Premier television journalism had inspired her. She thought that first-class journalism was more likely to provide her with the resources needed to generate deeper stories based on deeper connections with people. Jin-yeol, however, knew that she would probably never have a chance to enter mainstream television journalism given her educational background. Rather than attempting to enter TV journalism, she went back to school and began producing her own digital documentaries as a student. By the late 1990s, digital camcorders had become readily accessible to Korean consumers. Digital technology, to a certain degree, is a more liberating and democratic means of producing images than 8mm or 16mm cameras, projectors, and film prints, which are cumbersome and costly but were widely used among the film activism circuit in the 1980s and early 1990s. Despite this democratic means of production, which allowed Jin-yeol to produce her own documentaries, she still joined Docu Purŭn and KIFA. Her personal journey to join Docu Purŭn, however, for several reasons was quite different from most of the other members of the group. First, unlike most of the senior members of Docu Purŭn, her interest in documentary filmmaking was not shaped by the strong political agenda of the student movement or social activism. Her interest had been much more “personal” than “political,” according to her male colleague Han Sang-min*. Han, who came out of the student movement tradition, told me this in a conversation in Jin-yeol’s absence. His comments, based on the 1980s clear-cut delineation between the two categories (personal vs. political),1 were made not only to point out the generational gap in this group, but also to express his concerns about his younger female colleague who was “too much into personal documentaries.” Jin-yeol’s empathy for the human suffering caused by the North-South division was framed in her yearning for a deeper “personal connection” with her subjects. From her own account, I could tell that she was as attracted to her emotional connections to her subjects as she was to the historical and political aspects of the North-South division. In contrast, all of her colleagues at Docu Purŭn were involved in the radical student movement, and they were, in one way or another, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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affiliated with one of two prominent strands in the activist milieu. The two political anchors for the activist political strands were the reunification of North and South Korea and the centrality of the labor movement in Korean democracy. In the 1980s, these two issues were central to most of the social movement agenda. Issues close to these two poles were considered “political,” while others, which fell outside of these core issues, were easily glossed over as simply being too “personal” or “accessorial.” Jin-yeol’s interest in handicapped women represented voices that were considered peripheral by some of the older male Docu Purŭn members who politically came of age in the 1980s. While talking about her project on the handicapped woman, Jin-yeol stated that she was as fascinated with the strong personality of her main subject as she was with the grander themes of societal discrimination and social justice. Basically, hers was a much more “personal documentary,” asserted Jin-yeol, who felt strongly that the personal nature of her work was a strength, rather than a weakness. In short, she was both acknowledging and challenging her colleague Han Sang-min’s criticism. Second, Jin-yeol had produced documentaries on her own before she joined Docu Purŭn. Two-thirds of the filmmakers at Docu Purŭn knew little or nothing about documentary filmmaking when they joined the group. In contrast, Jin-yeol had already completed two successful documentaries that were shown at the Seoul Women’s Film Festival and at other small documentary film festivals before she joined the group. After the three-month Docu Purŭn documentary workshop, during which Jin-yeol and I interacted on a daily basis, Docu Purŭn arranged a group trip for workshop participants and Docu Purŭn members. It was held at an affordable inn on the rural outskirts of Seoul. I met Jin-yeol at a subway station in the far northern part of Seoul so that we could take a bus together to the inn. Since it was close to dinner time, Jinyeol wondered if I was hungry. We agreed to eat at a McDonald’s conveniently located next to the subway station. Even though I did not want to be seen at the McDonald’s by other Docu Purŭn members who might disapprove of the cultural imperialistic fast food chain, Jin-yeol and I knew that the food at the get-together could be remarkably unappealing. The prepared food at these KIFA gatherings was usually crude, partially because people did not care what they ate but also because of a sense of obligation that the food at Docu Purŭn gatherings should not be too EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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different from the food consumed by their documentary subjects (who were mostly working class). In an attempt to follow up on an earlier conversation held shortly after she joined Docu Purŭn, I asked Jin-yeol about her experience as a new member after a couple of months. While we were eating at McDonald’s, Jin-yeol enthusiastically asserted that she had joined the “Docu Purŭn community” because she wanted “systematic support” from an organization. Jin-yeol also said that she was sick of being lonely and of working alone. When we arrived at the inn surrounded by mountains it was already getting dark. Next to the inn, huge strips of pig skin, as long as 13–14 inches, were being cooked on a make-shift grill made of a piece of a chain-link fence over the fire. The smell of burnt fat was strong even in the open air. I had never seen anything like that. I asked Young-min* and Chun-ch’ŏl*, who were responsible for bringing the food, about the bizarre barbeque. The two men, both in their early thirties, proudly told me that they got the pig skin from a local butcher for free. Kim Dong-won, who had been involved in the underclass movement for decades, seemed comfortable with the food, and began eating the pig skin, which still featured hair and stubble. Other men happily grabbed the pig skin with their chopsticks, as if eating this challenging food was proof of their loyalty to the working class represented in many of their works. Young-min, the younger of the two proud shoppers, even joked that the strips of pig skin were large enough to make seamless leather wallets. Jin-yeol and I, quite full after eating hamburgers, felt even less hungry after Young-min’s joke. But we reluctantly grabbed our chopsticks and rummaged through the pig skin pieces, trying to take part in this performance. I could bring myself to eat only one piece. Jin-yeol seemed to enjoy the food more than I and commented that it was tastier than it appeared. I was looking at her face glowing, reflecting the light from the camp fire where the chain-link “grill” was spread. We were surrounded by two dozen members and workshop participants. It seemed that Jin-yeol had found the community that she craved.

Organizational Constraints In August 2002, a year after the KIFA trip described above, I visited the Docu Purŭn office during my summer vacation. I stayed late chatting EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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with filmmakers and administrators whom I had not seen for a while. Then, Jin-yeol and I stayed on after the other members left the office. She seemed as energetic as usual, and was busy editing her new film, Ich’yŏjin Yŏjŏnsa (Forgotten Warriors, 2005), a documentary on Korean women ppalch’isan (communist guerrillas),2 an off-shoot of Kim Dongwon’s documentary Repatriation. During our conversation, however, I could tell that her feelings for the Docu Purŭn community were not as optimistic as they had been a year before. In 2001, she won a grant from a semi-government agency, which I will call the Film Institute*, for her new documentary. The Film Institute used to finance only fiction films, but starting in 1999 it began funding documentaries, most of which were produced by KIFA members. Jinyeol had won seven million wŏn (around $5,500), which was to cover a significant portion of the production cost of her low-budget video documentary. At Docu Purŭn the average production cost of a documentary was ten million wŏn ($7,750) (Hong 2001). Even after the availability of the Film Institute funding and several festivals awards—which could be up to 10 million wŏn per major festival—were figured in, Docu Purŭn strove to abide by the principle of “communal production” and “communal consumption,” even if not in the strictest sense. Each member of Docu Purŭn, including Jin-yeol, would be assigned sundry jobs and tasks to collectively earn money for the group. Each member, in turn, would be given monthly hwaldong bi (activity allowances) by the collective, although the allowances hardly met minimum living expenses. A single person was paid 300,000 wŏn ($230) a month; a married person 400,000 wŏn ($300), and for each child 100,000 wŏn ($75) would be added to the “activity allowance.” This payment by the collective was never called a wage or salary although it was supposed to cover living expenses and it also took dependents into consideration. “Activity allowance” was a loaded term, as “activity” was considered an abbreviation for “political activity” in the 1980s. During hard times, however, these “activity allowances” would be reduced by up to half. Individual members’ searching for extra jobs to earn extra cash was allowed partly because the “activity allowance” was not enough to cover living expenses. However, the principle of communal earning and distribution was loosely applied to this exception as well. Thirty percent of one’s earnings over 300,000 wŏn were to be turned over to the Docu EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Purŭn collective. These “collective earnings” later on would be allotted to individual documentary projects to cover the production costs. The amount allotted was usually short of what was needed, which meant members’ taking up extra jobs (e.g., wedding and baby photo shoots and digital editing). Jin-yeol’s experience of winning the grant from the Film Institute made her question the validity of the collective earning system at Docu Purŭn. But at the same time, she could not deny that Docu Purŭn had provided her with the kind of “social capital” she would not have had access to otherwise. Her story revealed how intertwined the relationship was between the Film Institute and Docu Purŭn. Four out of six judges at the Film Institute’s Independent Film Funding Committee were acquaintances through Docu Purŭn or the film activism network that Jin-yeol had been directly or indirectly exposed to. Jin-yeol stated that “the interview was a bit awkward. I knew more than half of the judges. They seemed not as much interested in documentary projects as in feature film projects. They didn’t even ask me many questions. I think they just asked me about the estimated expense.” I also have to point out that the Film Institute accepted applications for funding of documentaries from individuals and not from collectives or groups. The assumption of this practice was that the unit of creation was an individual not a collective, which was a relatively new idea that emerged from the recent changes that I addressed in Chapter 2. This individual-based funding from the state, whose recipients were mostly KIFA filmmakers, was quite new to the older KIFA filmmakers. The Film Institute’s financial support for independent films, which occurred under the progressive cultural policies implemented by President Kim Dae-jung, benefited many KIFA members. The people who were involved in the film activism and social movement, once ostracized by the elite at cultural institutions, were sought after as judges at the Film Institute in this era of a new civilian government. The stigma of the past, in the second millennium seemed to have turned into the social capital needed to access critical resources at cultural institutions. This apparently beneficial shift, however, undermined the legacy of collaboration based on the communal system in most of the KIFA groups, including Docu Purŭn. The state-sponsored film funding policy in which KIFA members had a lot of say was, in a way, accelerating the disintegration of the sense of collectivity that was fundamental to the identity of the activist-oriented KIFA groups. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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There seemed to be a strong consensus among the KIFA community (and the judges at the Film Institute) that certain KIFA affiliated groups were more entitled to receive public support and funding due to their long commitment to representing the underprivileged despite little material compensation. For instance, a well-known filmmaker who came from an activist background, at the conference held in celebration of Kim Dong-won’s retrospective, commented, “Two film groups that truly deserve ethical, political, and monetary support are Docu Purŭn and the United Labor Film Collective.” As noted earlier, however, the recipients of this public funding were always individuals, while the decision to award grants to a certain individual was mostly contingent on that individual’s affiliation with specific activism-inclined organizations. “Worthiness” was assigned to the group, but the monetary grant was provided to a sole individual. And as we can see in Jin-yeol’s case, this disjuncture undermined the collectivity the Docu Purŭn community strived to reproduce. Jin-yeol continued to express her grievances toward Docu Purŭn after she received the grant from the Film Institute: It was a upsetting that all my grant money went into Docu Purŭn’s communal account. I didn’t get anything. The folks whom I’m filming, such as the elderly women who fought as communist guerrillas during the Korean War, still live in poverty. And I would like to bring small gifts or food for them when I visit them. But without the grant money that’s not going to happen. The thought of my grant money being used for Docu Purŭn’s hoeshik [collective dining-out] and other activities really bugs me. Although Docu Purŭn is going to be credited as the producer, my project is my baby after all. When I was writing the grant proposal months ago after other members and I returned from the Chŏnju Film Festival exhausted, some members cynically commented, “Do you really think you’ll get it?” I feel almost upset when I realize that my grant money is going to be used to feed these people and to support them to do their work. The collective payment for food, to me, is problematic. When people are staying late due to work, what can we do? But some stay late because they are either surfing the web or just passing time, and these people will also join in the “collective diningout.” . . . When I got the grant money there were lengthy discussions on what to do with it. Chairman Kim insisted that Docu Purŭn as a group set aside a certain amount of the funds for the person who wins the grant. Yun [an administrator at Docu Purŭn] also suggested that although the money belongs to Docu Purŭn, it should block 3 million EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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wŏn [$2,300] under my name. However, this idea met serious objections.

Revealing her doubts and grievances went against the grain of this group’s ideology. Her comments revealed deep and complex fissions and conflicts in the group. My question, immediately following this comment, concerned the reason she stayed with the group despite these drawbacks. I asked her if she was receiving some sort of technical support or “systematic” support as she had put it a year before. She answered without much hesitation: Not really. I don’t learn anything technological. When I first joined the group, an experienced member of KIFA who knew the organization quite well said “Why are you joining that group? If you’re joining after all, get out of that place after a year until you ‘suck out’ what you have to ‘suck out’ from the group.” Others said pretty much the same thing: After producing two documentaries of your own, why would you join that group? I think other members of Docu Purŭn might have felt the same way when I inquired about joining. The members of this group still read each other’s proposals and talk to each other, but there’s no further support system even though the group is given credit as the “producer.”

Jin-yeol had already hired an assistant director outside Docu Purŭn. She noted that finding an assistant director within the group was “quite awkward” because “everybody else wants to do his or her own work and doesn’t want to work for others in the group.” However, she added, some projects would have remained inaccessible for her if she had not worked through an organization like Docu Purŭn—for example, the project on female guerillas from the Korean War. Such a subject would have been “unimaginable” if she worked alone.

Organizational Advantages Jin-yeol had been assisting Kim Dong-won’s documentary project Repatriation since 2001. Since 1992, Kim had been filming North Korean political prisoners who were incarcerated in South Korea for several decades. These POWs had recently obtained approval from the South Korean government to return to North Korea, their “ideological homeland.” This repatriation was part of follow-up measures to the historic interKorean summit held in mid-June 2000, which called for the two Koreas EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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to engage in several programs on humanitarian grounds. On September 2, 2000, sixty-three “unconverted” communist prisoners, who had served an average of thirty-two and a half years in prison, were sent to North Korea through the border truce village of P’anmunjŏm (“Exspies to Return to North Korea Today,” Korea Herald, Sept. 2, 2000). The repatriates were mostly former guerrillas who had fought against South Korea during or shortly after the Korean War and spies dispatched by the North in the 1960s. Kim Sŏn-myŏng, one of the repatriates, had served forty-four years as a POW in a South Korean prison, and was acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the longest-serving political prisoner in the world. In spite of brutal pressures and torture to convert, especially during the 1970s, the peak of the anti-communist mobilization, these repatriates, ranging from 66 to 90 in age, refused to renounce communism (“Return of Former N.K. Spies Shows Eased South-North Tensions,” Korea Times, Sept. 2, 2000; “Today’s Editorial: Repatriation of North Korean Spies,” Korea Herald, Sept 4, 2000). When I asked Kim Dong-won in 2001 how he became acquainted with these long-term political prisoners, he casually responded, “One day, I suddenly received a phone call from a Catholic priest whom I’d known for a long time. He asked if I could drive the ex-spies who were being released from the prison to a shelter nearby where I was living. I drove them home.” Since his first encounter in 1992, he subsequently filmed the POWs for almost a decade. His seemingly casual accounts were, however, heavily loaded with meaning that should be put into historical and personal context: we first have to understand that Kim’s ostensibly simple act of chauffeuring these released prisoners was in fact a very risky task. The following account by Kwon Insook, 3 a former political dissident-turned-feminist scholar, gives a solid historical context to help understand the risks Kim might have faced had anything gone awry: When Chunghee Park carried out the military coup in 1961, the first pledge he made was to strengthen [the] anti-communism policy. Park arrested 930 people charged of being potentially pro-Communist. They were members of political parties or of civilian movement organizations, as well as teachers, students, and reporters. Two months after the coup, the temporary military regime promulgated “Pankongpob” (Anti-Communist Law). Under [the] Anti-Communist Law, any kind of connection, meeting or communication with North EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Korea that was defined as an anti-state institution was illegal. Also, any kind of activity that might work for the interests of North Korea was illegal. Thus, both in theory and in reality, any kind of anti-government activity was a direct violation of [the] Anti-Communism Law, because harming the South Korean government meant support for North Korea. (Kwon 2000: 44–45)

Since being associated with communism in any way was automatically an anti-government activity, the issue of North Korean long-term prisoners in South Korean society has long been taboo. The request by the Catholic priest who was acting on behalf of a prominent civic organization, Mingahyŏp, the Association of Family Members for Democracy (hereinafter, AFMD), was based on the long history of mutual trust and political commitment between Kim and the priest. AFMD was founded in 1983 by family members (predominately mothers) of prisoners of conscience or people who were killed or had gone missing under the military dictatorship. AFMD organized a support network for “unconverted long-term political prisoners,” who had no place to call home or family members to turn to for support. Some POWs were from North Korea and had no relatives in the South. Those whose hometowns were in South Korea were also “homeless.” These South-Korean-born POWs were shunned by their family members and relatives, who suffered persistent abuse by the police only because they were related to “reds,” easy targets of persecution in South Korean society. The Catholic priest had called Kim primarily because of Kim’s imbedded presence in the urban underclass movement in Pongch’ŏndong, an impoverished neighborhood of which he was an integral part. AFMD had decided to build a shelter for the unconverted long-term prisoners who were newly released and had nowhere to go. Kim, in his documentary Repatriation, showed that this hillside neighborhood’s strong sense of community and acceptance eased the transition of the elderly POWs into civilian life. Kim noted in his narration in the film that the strong anti-communist sentiment entrenched in South Korean society in general did not wield as much power in the shantytown as it did in middleclass neighborhoods. “People in Pongch’ŏndong got to know the POWs,” Kim stated in his documentary. In an urban middle class high-rise apartment building with double and triple rings of security guards and high-tech security gates, this could hardly have happened, Kim asserted. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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If Jin-yeol had not joined Kim Dong-won’s Repatriation project, she would not have been able to access a group of POWs who had to be treated in such a sensitive and delicate manner. As an assistant director in this project, Jin-yeol had worked closely with the AFMD’s “Support Group for Unconverted Political Prisoners.” Through Kim and AFMD, Jin-yeol was able to build relationships with the ex-prisoners whose guards were held high by the hostile society that had imprisoned them so long. The Political Prisoners’ group, by its nature, was very exclusive toward “outsiders.” Once when Jin-yeol asked the group of POWs if she could participate in the meetings that were held once a week, not only the POWs but the committed volunteers of the AFMD were “shocked” to hear such an “inappropriate” request. One of the volunteers in his midthirties who worked there for over ten years never dared to ask to sit in the meetings. Jin-yeol was given a “pep-talk” by this volunteer who cynically kept saying, “How dare you” during the “talk.” So Jin-yeol’s selfassessment that she would not have had any sort of access if she had not worked with Kim Dong-won made sense. Kim let her into his network that had been built on long-lasting trust between Kim and AFMD.

Forgotten Warriors: Female POWs Jin-yeol had not noticed the female POWs when she had just started working with the POWs. She described the moment when she came to this realization: As I was just starting to get to know the POWs, I never got introduced to the female POWs. I just assumed they were “mothers” at the AFMD.4 Once I was reviewing the roughs that were taken and noticed one elderly woman sitting where a huge gathering was being held. I asked one of my colleagues in the office who she was, thinking that she must be one of the “mothers” from the AFMD. My colleague responded that she was one of the female POWs who were engaged in guerilla activity during the Korean War. He responded casually as if he was surprised that I didn’t know. But I was really shocked that I didn’t learn that during the first several weeks of filming. I later learned that the elderly woman whom I spotted had served thirteen years in prison as a POW.

Jin-yeol’s discovery that these women, whom she mistook as “AFMD mothers,” were actually communist guerillas shattered the impression of the POW group she had developed through her work in the Repatriation EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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film project. She was struck by the realization that she had been looking solely through the lens of Kim’s project, which was, in a sense, an embodiment of Kim’s gendered vision. This hindsight encouraged her to start thinking about her own project of filming the female POWs. This hindsight motivated her “self-education,” as Jin-yeol started to “notice little things” that revealed the nature of the human relationships between and among the POWs and AFMD members. Jin-yeol noted, “My encounter with female guerrillas triggered a lot of thoughts in me. The young members at AFMD call male guerillas sŏnsaengnim [a word literally meaning “teachers,” which is often used to deferentially refer to honorable persons] while calling guerilla women mothers.” Jin-yeol was extremely irritated that the female guerillas were lumped together with the AFMD’s “mothers,” whose children suffered under the harsh military regime. To Jin-yeol, this showed the inability of the AFMD and Docu Purŭn to find a proper place for female guerillas. Jin-yeol’s new project resulted from her hindsight that Kim’s Repatriation effectively erased the story of the former female guerillas. While talking to me, Jin-yeol was consciously using the word sŏnsaengnim (teachers) for female guerillas, who, she felt, deserved this title as much as their male counterparts. Jin-yeol implied that considering the fact that some of the female guerillas never married or had children after being released from jail in their forties, being called “mother” might have evoked complex emotions in them. We also have to take note of the fact that some of these women consciously and repeatedly suppressed their “maternal instinct” in order to ready themselves to leave their children and join the guerillas. In an interview by Choi Ki-ja (2001), whose work on former female guerillas I was introduced to by Jin-yeol, a peasant guerilla woman tells the story of her decision to leave her baby. The woman got married before the Korean War and her husband joined the communist guerilla movement, leaving her and her son behind in a village: Once I had my baby, I told myself, “For the sake of my child, this repressive class system really has to come to an end. For my offspring, I have to leave and join the guerillas in the mountains.” I couldn’t go right then because I was breastfeeding my infant. I would whisper to my child, “Please, baby, grow big enough so I can wean you!” So I waited and waited until I weaned my child. I really waited for that moment to come. As a matter of fact, I truly feel guilty toward my son when I think about it now. But then I didn’t show him much love. I EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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intentionally didn’t allow myself to show my love. Once he builds a strong attachment, I thought, it would be harder to wean him and leave him. That’s going to make things harder. So I never expressed my love. I never smiled at him or played with him. I did this on purpose. I simply fed him. That’s all. The only tenderness I showed him was during the night when I was holding his hands while he was asleep. And I would think, “Oh, my lord, I’m going to leave sometime soon. I hope you grow up well after I leave.” I would think that and put his hands next to my face while he was asleep. That was all. That was the only tenderness I could show him. But I believed that I should fight to demolish the class hierarchy for the sake of my child, for him to live in an equal society. The night I was leaving, I told my child that I’m going to fetch water from the kitchen. And I left to join my comrades. I heard my child crying while I was leaving. But I kept running. I dropped by my in-laws’ to beg them to care for my son. I told them that my husband and I were unlikely to return. I said, “If you can’t, please give the baby to your daughter who doesn’t have a son. Let her adopt my child and raise him.” That’s what I said. And I left for the mountains to join the guerrillas. (Choi 2001)

Through her experience with the AFMD, Jin-yeol came to a realization that representation of these female guerillas was hampered by the gender bias inherent not just in Korean society in general but even in “progressive” movement subcultures. This bias, which placed women in the traditional role of motherhood, prevented the conception of women as political actors on the same level as their male counterparts. Carving out spaces for representation of women other than as wives, mothers, and daughters was as challenging in the movement subculture as it would be in any other place in Korea. As if she could never get over it, Jin-yeol, with a sense of bitterness about the absurdity of calling all guerilla women “mothers,” mentioned at the end of our conversation, “Some female guerillas never married, after all.” In January 2004, from my home in Cambridge, I called Docu Purŭn’s office to inquire about the availability of the Repatriation preview tapes that were released to patrons of the film group. Yun, an administrator at Docu Purŭn, excitedly said that Repatriation had won the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Yun was exhilarated to report that it was the first Sundance award to a Korean film. He happily added that Kim Dong-won and his wife had flown to Park City at the invitation of the festival. I asked why Jin-yeol, as the assistant director, did not accompany them, and was told that her application for a visa EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Figure 5.  A still from Forgotten Warriors: female POWs on a day-trip. Courtesy of Kim Jin-yeol.

was turned down because she was a single woman without an apparently “respectable” job. Forgotten Warriors, by Kim Jin-yeol This documentary traces the life stories of women who fought for North Korea during the Korean War (1950–1953). These women were captured and imprisoned by the South Korean government after North Korea retreated from the southern part the Korean peninsula in the face of General Douglas MacArthur’s successful Incheon landing. The former communist guerillas and spies featured in this film all met in prison while they were serving time. Now in their 70s and released from prison some decades ago, they reflect on their past and present. The film focuses on Park Sun-ja, who was born in 1930 to a farmer’s family in Ha-dong, in Southern Kyung-sang province. When she turned 15, she started to do chores for her older brother, who was involved in communist mobilization, and later Park turned to communism as a philosophy and a political movement that would liberate her from the confines of the Japanese colonial social hierarchy and patriarchal system that rendered her a second-class citizen. She joined the North Korean guerilla struggle in 1950 and was captured in 1954. In 1966, when she was released from prison after serving more than a decade, she married EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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a communist “comrade,” who was newly widowed with six children. Park also gave birth to a child with cerebral palsy whom she still spends most of her time caring for. She weathers the heavy domestic work at home with high spirits and good cheer, but in the middle of the film she confesses that “life as a mother to seven children has been much more challenging than that of a communist guerilla fighter,” alluding to the hardship she has faced in trying to win the “liberation from patriarchy” that she had set out to achieve half a century before. The film fluidly follows Park as she tackles her everyday challenges of caring for her family as well as her enduring participation in the political movement for the unification of the two Koreas. In so doing, the film effectively portrays the “double warfare” in which these women are engaged.

N e w S pac e s a n d E n c o u n t e r s : S u n g -m i ’s S t o ry The United Labor Film Collective In the spring of 2001, I met Min Sung-mi, a 31-year-old female documentary filmmaker, at a KIFA gathering where several friends and acquaintances at KIFA kept asking her if some of what they heard about her new documentary, Divergence*, was true or not. A KIFA member informed me that Sung-mi was entangled in some dispute that the documentary provoked. Later, I learned that her documentary was known to be a potent critique of the Hyundai Motor union, a symbol of the South Korean militant labor movement since the mid-1980s. Sung-mi was a producer of this documentary, which received critical acclaim at PIFF, the Chŏnju International Film Festival, the Labor Film Festival, the Seoul Women’s Film Festival, and the Human Rights Film Festival, among many other film festivals. Around the time I met her, however, two other colleagues of hers who had worked on this documentary wanted to “take some time off” (or, in fact, hide from the public eye) and demanded that the film not be distributed for a while to avoid further disputes and complaints. She seemed distressed by the whole situation. Since Sung-mi was actively involved in KIFA activities, I was able to meet her for further interviews. When I was introduced to her for the first time, she had asked me which school I had gone to and teased me by saying that she never liked Seoul National University graduates, the reason for which I found out later. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Sung-mi had been working with labor unions for quite a long while. In 1989, she entered Chŏnbuk University, located in North Chŏlla Province, a region known for its underrepresentation in politics and economic underdevelopment. While in college she was elected a representative of a student activist organization and became intrigued by the use of theater and traditional music in political protests, but was too preoccupied with her post as a student representative to pursue her artistic interests. Before graduation, she thought of getting a blue-collar job with a counterfeit résumé “to organize the laborers, following older activists’ footsteps.”5 She actually went to an export industrial complex in Masan to hunt for a place where she could work, but soon realized that she was not “cut out for a mission of that nature.” She felt that she was betraying her comrades but also that the lifestyle she had been leading was taking a toll on her, “both mentally and financially.” Nonetheless, she told me that she refused to give up activism. “It’s the basic principle of my life,” she said. Yet she was searching for different means that might give her more “room to breathe” while maintaining her principles. “I was too sick of living day by day worrying about money,” she mentioned. She moved to Seoul with what little money she had to become a reporter for Labor Daily, a “progressive newspaper representing emergent working-class voices.” But she was told by Labor Daily executives that they had no plans to hire a female reporter; that infuriated her. Then, for six months, she took classes on film and video production. During this time, she was asked by a former activist friend to help out with makeup at Labor Party candidates’ photo shoots. Since she did have experience with theater makeup in college, she took the job, where she met people from the United Labor Film Collective, one of the oldest and the most labor-movement-centered organizations among KIFA-affiliated groups. According to their mission statement, the United Labor Film Collective had formed through the consolidation of several film groups in 1989 to support the labor movement. The group had made “more than fifty feature-length educational videos on the independent and progressive labor movement in Korea” and strived to “cover other activist campaigns not reported in the mainstream media.” United Labor Film Collective activists were deeply engaged in training union workers to film their own struggles as well as documenting labor union campaigns.

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Shattered Dreams Shortly after she became a member of the United Labor Film Collective, Sung-mi immersed herself in work, as a number of labor disputes had broken out in 1994. But her financial hardship did not end. She received only 50,000 wŏn a month as an “activity allowance,” which was far less than what was needed to meet her basic needs. What made things worse was her disappointment with the ways the United Labor Film Collective and labor movement bureaucrats, with whom the United Labor Film Collective was closely tied, operated. In one of the interviews conducted in 2001, Sung-mi lamented: My idealized image of hyŏnjang [sites of labor struggles], which I had as a student activist, was totally shattered at the United Labor Film Collective. That was probably my biggest learning experience. . . . I was heartbroken to learn that there are so many poorly grounded people, I mean people like garbage, among union activists. I guess I was caught up in this mentality of a person in love. It was an unrequited love for the hyŏnjang.

She added that the United Labor Film Collective was extremely hierarchical and was ultimately elitist, as the organization was “undemocratically run” by the leader, Lee June-sang, a prestigious Seoul National University graduate. Lee June-sang, a tall and clean-cut man, whom Sung-mi described as a “despotic absentee decision-maker,” happened to be one of my close informants. Having gone to the same school did not hurt, even though Lee and I were many years apart. In college, he was one of the core members of Yallashyŏng,6 the Seoul National University Film Group, which nourished many leading activists in the 1980s. In recent years, his intellect, experience, and fluent English were put to use as he traveled internationally several times a year to meet with programmers at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (one of the largest documentary film festivals in the world, held annually in Japan) and to attend video activism conferences in both the United States and England. I first met him at the Chŏnju International Film Festival’s official party, which was held at a beautiful traditional Korean mansion, obviously chosen for the international crowd. As I was introducing myself to him, I noticed that he was sitting with other international guests. I sat next to a sophisticated Japanese woman who introduced herself as a programmer from the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Yamagata International Documentary Festival. She was pointing to Lee June-sang, telling me that he has been the “brains” of the Yamagata International Documentary Festival and that she would not have known what to do without him as a “strategist.” Lee was slightly blushing, smiling shyly, and quietly listening to the compliments told to me. He was an extremely capable individual who was acknowledged as a major personality at international film festivals in Korea and abroad, and at NGOs around the globe. Lee June-sang was also well connected in domestic politics, to various parts of the emerging state culture/art apparatus, such as the Film Council in which many film former film activists of the 3-8-6 generation became key players in distributing resources. As a member of KIFA, he was active in implementing a public access channel through the Film Council’s joint committees with major TV networks. A public access channel was a concept that he had introduced to Korean legislators and network bureaucrats. His effort to push the Film Council to secure a public access channel for independent films and to build independentfilm-only theaters was carried out as one of KIFA’s main projects. The disparity between June-sang, with his upper-middle-class background, and Sung-mi, with her peasant background, widened as Junesang became institutionally and globally connected. Sung-mi was frustrated that June-sang had little time to mentor since he was caught up in national and global projects and networking. She also criticized him and other senior members for devoting little time to the workers— they were taking video production classes at the United Labor Film Collective—whom the United Labor Film Collective, in principle, strived to “educate” and serve. She also could not stand the “art administrators” at the Chŏnohyŏp (Korean Trade Union Congress, hereinafter, KTUC),7 an umbrella organization representing the “core”—centered on heavy industry, and thus, malebased labor unions—of the militant labor movement. The United Labor Film Collective had been a designated partner of the KTUC for the past decade, and had been given projects and exclusive distribution networks. Sung-mi grew impatient with what she called “censorship” by these administrators of KTUC: she had to watch preview tapes of her work with the administrators, who would “give orders” on editing her work that spilled outside the KTUC agenda. “Senior staff of the United Labor Film Collective did not mind, it seemed, but I did.” So she and other younger members left the group and formed a new documentary group, Horizon, in 1996. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Working within the Old Network Sung-mi, however, did not abandon the labor union network that she had cultivated while she was with the United Labor Film Collective. As a lowranking staff member at the collective, she took up mundane tasks—which higher-ranking staff, busy cultivating institutional and global networks, were neglecting—such as accompanying union organizers, who wanted to set up a “labor union video squad,” to wholesale camera stores in Seoul in order to help them purchase equipment. She said that her investment in relationships of this nature paid off in the end. The labor union leaders whom she befriended started calling Horizon instead of the United Labor Film Collective whenever they needed somebody to videotape labor union events. The labor action at Hyundai Motors was one of them. Sung-mi and two other members of Horizon went down to the city of Ulsan, where massive layoffs at the Hyundai Motor Company plant had been widely reported. Since the winter of 1997, the Korean business community had been making aggressive claims about the possible impact of the International Monetary Fund bailout of Korea on management-labor relations. The Korea Employers Federation claimed it was an imperative for the IMF rescue package to include layoffs and a reduction of new recruits. The Employers Federation argued that this was the only way Korea could satisfy the usual conditions of IMF emergency loans, such as economic reform and monetary constraints (“Biz Weighs Impact of IMF Loan on Labor-Management Relations,” Korea Times, Nov. 27, 1997). According to government figures, smaller companies had already been laying off workers at a rate of 10,000 a day since the adoption of layoff legislation in February 1998. It was reported that “officials expect the nation’s unemployment to rise to 8.5 percent in 1998 from 2.5 percent in 1997” (“Hyundai Workers in Ulsan Threaten Strikes against Massive Layoffs,” Korea Herald, April 11, 1998). According to business reports, the nation’s largest conglomerates, such as Hyundai, LG, and SK, each planned to lay off 5,000 to 10,000 employees by the end of 1998. The concept of “flexible layoffs” was new to Koreans, who had been used to lifetime employment since the country had begun its economic development in the 1960s (“Labor Minister Warns Businesses against Abusing Mass Layoffs,” Korea Herald, Mar. 13, 1998). Hyundai Motor spearheaded the trend of mass layoffs among the conglomerates by announcing that it would dismiss about 9,000 to 10,000 EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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workers, or roughly 20 percent of its 46,000 employees on the company payroll (“Chaebols Using Massive Layoffs as Part of Restructuring,” Korea Herald, April 13, 1998). In response, the Hyundai Motor Company labor union, one of the biggest in South Korea, staged a sit-in at the headquarters in Ulsan. The union spokesman said to the workers that “layoffs are a matter of life and death” and demanded that the company had to present acceptable restructuring formulas to help overcome existing difficulties before attempting to fire thousands of workers (“Hyundai Workers in Ulsan Threaten Strike against Massive Layoffs,” Korea Herald, April 11, 1998). The union also claimed that the management’s decision to lay off workers amounted to forcing workers to take responsibility for the recession. It argued that “workers’ salaries account for only about 10 percent of the total corporate expenses” (“Labor-Management Face-Off over Layoffs,” Korea Times, May 26, 1998). Sung-mi and two of her team began taping the Hyundai labor union’s resistance and entered the factory with the full support of the union.

Departure from the Old Ways Sung-mi, her staff, and the union leaders considered Divergence’s initial filming a “routine shooting” of labor union events until news about “under the table” deals between the union and the corporate leaders emerged. With the advice of a mediation team from the ruling National Congress for New Politics led by Representative Roh Moo-hyun, union leaders and Hyundai managers agreed on laying off 400 employees, including 289 female in-house dining hall workers. This layoff was considered a “reasonable compromise” even by liberal newspapers, such as the Hankyoreh Daily, since the sheer number of layoffs was reduced to three digits as opposed to the proposed 10,000 (“Breaking the Deadlock: Hyundai Layoff Compromise,” Hankyoreh Daily, Aug. 28, 1998). The “routine shooting” turned into a daily struggle between Sung-mi’s team and the union leaders as the team kept filming the fights between female dining hall workers and labor union leaders. She said that union leaders asked her team to “reveal their true identity,” as they tried to confiscate her camera and equipment. She seemed displeased by the union’s arrogance when she stated, “The labor union thinks that the existence of documentary groups [such as Horizon and the United Labor Film Collective] is contingent on theirs. They thought that we are dismantling this existing relationship and trust.” EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The union leaders even asked the company managers to stop her team from entering Hyundai property, which Sung-mi had freely navigated for months with the union’s approval. According to her, security guards who used to think she was one of the workers at the plant suddenly stopped her at the gate. The title of her documentary, Divergence, was a quote from a frustrated dining hall worker who said that the relationship between the female dining hall workers and the union leaders resembled that of diverging lines that never meet, marked by a total absence of “common ground.” The dining hall workers, all middle-aged women with families to support, became scapegoats to save the (male) union workers whose wives and children became more and more visible at the rallies and sitins as the union framed the massive layoff as “a matter of life and death” for working families. A popular slogan at union rallies, “When the kajang [the head of household/patriarch] collapses, the kajŏng [home] collapses,” obscured the fact that the female workers were also the breadwinners of their families. Sung-mi’s documentary made the families of the female dining hall workers personable and visible. The mainstream media employed terms such as “men in crisis,” “listless men,” and “kogaesugin namja” (men with drooped heads) as metaphors of the Korean state, whose masculinity was threatened by the economic peril (Hwang 2002: 82). Wives were blamed for abandoning their jobless husbands, who were left on the streets. News reports described South Korea’s unprecedentedly high divorce rate (1 in 3 couples) as a social ailment caused by the economic crisis (“1998 Population Research: Economic Crisis Accountable for High Divorce and Collapse of Family Lives,” Segeh Ilbo, Aug. 23, 1999). Although there were several other documentary projects on the Hyundai union workers produced by video activist groups during this time, none of them focused on the female dining hall workers and their family members. Sung-mi and her team at Horizon became more and more isolated. Sung-mi said that it was painful to see how these middle-aged dining hall workers, who at first had unfathomable trust in the leadership of the labor union, finally admitted the fact that the union leaders were nothing more than “Korean men living in Korea.” While I was listening to her story, I felt that Sung-mi’s disillusionment with the United Labor Film Collective and the elite/male movement subculture in which the collective was immersed gave her keener eyes in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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observing and understanding the perils of female workers at Hyundai Motor entrenched in a masculine activist culture. The movie Divergence, when released at major film festivals in Korea, received rave reviews from critics while it was severely criticized by the Hyundai union and other militant labor support organizations, such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). In the fall of 2001, at a Human Rights Film Festival held in Ulsan, where the Hyundai factory was located, festival organizers attempted to “take out some scenes” from this documentary. Festival organizers, whom Sung-mi suspected were under the Hyundai union’s influence, claimed that some parts of the documentary would create “tensions between the workers.” “Ulsan was certainly governed by the Hyundai Kingdom,” Sung-mi noted, pointing not only to the power of the corporation, which commercially “monopolized” not only the city—evident in omnipresent Hyundai apartments, Hyundai department stores, and, of course, Hyundai cars—but also the Hyundai union, which “colonized” the minds of workers and even other grassroots movements in the area. Sung-mi said that there was still a huge feeling of disbelief among labor movement sympathizers who saw her work. She added that a reporter from a liberal newspaper, after a screening at a labor advocacy group, seriously asked her whether some of the scenes were “exaggerated reenactments.” Sung-mi said that the union leaders were telling people that they were planning to sue her for defamation and casting their image in a false light. Sung-mi continued: I didn’t mind. I thought, go ahead and sue us. I want to fight too. Revealing our disagreement with the union could be one of the significant contributions that this documentary can make. Suing and going to court . . . that’s what the managers used to do in order to control the union in the past. And that’s the same means that the union is resorting to now.

The Hyundai labor union did not file a lawsuit after all. The broader labor movement community, however, did not become more sympathetic to Sung-mi’s project. The following story illustrates the attitude of the labor movement community during this time. A South Korean sociologist, Hwang Chŏng-mi (2002), notes that the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, in April of 1999, made posters to be widely distributed for the May Day (Labor Day) rallies that showed a male worker with EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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his fist in the foreground, signaling that he is going out to a rally, while his wife, with her baby on her back, waves farewell in the background. On the poster is the slogan “You are the only hope,” as if narrated by the wife. This poster hints at the mainstream labor movement community’s reaction when Sung-mi’s documentary was released: women were only considered supporters of the labor movement and not protagonists. Therefore, Sung-mi’s documentary that featured women workers as vocal agents was not received favorably by the mainstream labor movement at the time. Although the Hyundai union and the labor movement community did not embrace Sung-mi’s work, the major international film festivals held in Pusan and Chŏnju featured it. Divergence received acclaim from both critics and film fans. These international film festivals—catering to the upwardly mobile Korean middle-class craving for a different “taste” in films—became the main venue for independent filmmakers, especially those like Sung-mi (similar cases are addressed in Chapter 5). As seen in Chapter 2, these new venues, despite having been opened up by conglomerate capital and state support, were appropriated by some independent filmmakers to introduce new visions and political sensibilities. The new audiences in these festivals were very different from the prepared/predictable audience of the 1980s film activism. In a similar vein, the audience of Sung-mi’s films at the international film festivals was “unprepared” and “unpredictable.” Audiences at these film festivals were much more open to understanding the kind of fissure in the labor movement represented in Sung-mi’s documentary. Audience members made comments that would be considered “sacrilegious” in the tight social movement circles in which the labor films were traditionally circulated. When I was at the screening of this film at PIFF, two male spectators sitting behind me, who seemed to be in their early or mid-twenties, joked that the president of Hyundai and the union leader of Hyundai, when they were contently shaking hands after the “under the table” negotiations (a scene in the film), looked eerily alike: the president of Hyundai and the Hyundai union leader were both stout men with round faces and button noses. The two spectators exchanged comments such as “How come they look like brothers?,” which elicited laughter from the audience. After the screening and right before the Q&A session with the directors, I overheard a young woman telling “rumors” to her friend. She said EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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that the president of Hyundai offered a car, a Hyundai Grandeur (the most expensive model) to the union leader as a gesture of reconciliation. “But the noble union leader turned down the offer,” she added. After a pause to build up suspense for the joke that followed, she continued, “You know why? Because the union leader was already driving a Hyundai Sonata!” Both quietly chuckled as I with others grinned with them in complicity. These commentators in the audience were, to an extent, buying into the popular media portrayal of the emerging well-to-do as nodong gwijok (labor aristocrats), a phrase designed to subdue public sympathy for the laid-off workers at conglomerates. Sung-mi’s documentary, however, was not something “unimaginable” to these two spectators as it was to the viewers in close-knit labor movement communities. Film festival venues opened up possibilities for this unorthodox labor movement documentary to be embraced. Through these new venues Sung-mi and her team stimulated discussion as to whether the South Korean militant labor movement, which proclaimed itself to represent the interests of “all workers,” was engaging in very gendered practices. The heavy-industry-based, conglomerate-centered, and male-oriented labor movement, while speaking in terms of universal labor rights, had hardly represented all workers. Its claims to represent laborers in the abstract had rarely been challenged since the mid-1980s as the labor movement had been considered a core part of Korean democracy. Hwang Chŏng-mi in an article on the transformation of masculinity in Korea, eloquently articulates the issue at hand: The current claims that Korean manhood is threatened are quite striking assertions, considering the authority and privilege Korean men have enjoyed throughout history. . . . One of the current responses to the men’s “crisis” is a strong critique of the unjust social structure that endorsed the monopolization of resources and power. This logic is similar to that of the oppositional social movement in the past. In this case, men are not representing their particular sex. They are representing the “oppressed” whose sex is unmarked. The underlying assumption here is that the “oppressors” and “the oppressed” are both male. Therefore, masculinity has been an effective (and singular) code for mobilizing dissent and catalyzing resistance. However, the organizations that rely on this combatant masculinity are hardly run democratically and always run a risk of overlooking minorities within. (Hwang 2002: 82–83) EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Through making visible the dominant—yet unsaid—gendered ideology imbedded in the United Labor Film Collective and the Hyundai union, Sung-mi made the public question these “invisible, unmarked and yet powerfully normative” categories (Mackey 2002) in the movement subculture. Sung-mi’s intensified marginalization vis-à-vis globally and institutionally connected male leadership made her more attuned to the female workers’ disillusionment with the masculine labor movement at Hyundai Motor. Sung-mi’s case shows how, as I argued in Chapter 2, new cultural institutions, such as international film festivals and the new spectatorship, created a space for female independent filmmakers to contradict and challenge the movement subculture.

N e g o t i a t i o n : A d va n t a g e s a n d D i s a d va n t a g e s Both Jin-yeol and Sung-mi came from less privileged backgrounds than their male counterparts. Both women were migrants from rural areas and their parents were farmers. Although they both attended college, the schools they attended were less prestigious, and thus their bachelor degrees did not translate into upwardly mobile professions. Albeit through different routes, they both entered activism-oriented film groups. The existing communal activist subculture at both film groups was extremely gendered in that these organizations heavily relied on charismatic male leadership and mentoring. Both started out as assistant directors and mentees to seasoned male leaders who had long experience in social activism. Jin-yeol and Sung-mi were actively adapting to the new institutions and resources that emerged under the new political and cultural environment while, at the same time, appropriating activist networks and resources that they accessed through their mentors who possessed symbolic and social capital. The new cultural institutions, networks, and apertures which emerged in the context of a symbiosis between the postauthoritarian Korean state and KIFA, opened up space for female independent filmmakers to contradict or even to challenge the communal activist subculture. This communal activist culture had been based on male leadership drawing on moral authority and exclusive social networks founded on this moral privilege. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The gap, however, is not closing. On the contrary, the independent film circuit has been polarized as the fissure between the elites of these activist film organizations who become globally and institutionally connected and those who are not connected widens. Both Jin-yeol and Sung-mi experienced intensified marginalization as well-connected male leaders acquired such institutional recognition—both national and global—through appropriating the symbolism of the 3-8-6 generation. This symbolism was essential to the Kim Dae-jung administration’s promise to undo the wrongs of the previous military and civilian governments, which lacked moral authority. This public discourse was played out in film communities, including KIFA. KIFA’s 3-8-6 generation–men, mostly the charismatic leaders of independent film groups, were picked by the Kim Dae-jung–era film institutions and policy makers to “rectify” the former authoritarian regimes’ “premodern,” irrational, and thus, “immoral” Korean film industry. An unexpected consequence of this symbiosis between 3-8-6 generation–male leadership and the “progressive” cultural policy makers of the Kim Dae-jung government was the intensified marginalization of women within KIFA film groups. However, at the same time, through their adaptation to and appropriation of this systematic change and existing networks, the two female filmmakers questioned and critiqued the existing male-centered social movement. With their critical perspective, practices, and representational works, they carved out spaces for their voices in the movement subculture, which had been represented as androgynously progressive and righteous.

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five

Film Festival Fever The Circulation of Independent Films

This chapter explores the meaning behind the consumption of KIFA members’ films shown at Korea’s burgeoning film festivals. Since the mid-1990s, as distribution networks based on social activism faded, new venues—art houses, art galleries, and film festivals, especially the international art film festival circuit—became the major (and most of the time, sole) outlet for independent filmmakers to showcase their work and also to earn cash awards for future productions. I have already explored how these new venues created spaces where unexplored political sensibilities have been expressed. In this chapter, however, I will first examine how PIFF emerged as a product of complex alliances between emboldened local politics, the state’s globalization project, and independent filmmakers who found a niche in this particular political economy. Second, international film festivals have become new venues where the upwardly mobile middle class’s incessant pursuit of cultural capital is performed. I investigate how such cultural identity is played out at the proliferating international film festivals, which became the major venue for the KIFA members’ films. Through EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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consumption of festival films over a short span of time, this new middle class experienced “compressed modernity” (Chang 1999) in the cultural arena. The “mercantilist state ideology of ‘catch-up’ with advanced countries” (Chang 1999: 49) promoted in economic terms in the past has now been transposed to the cultural domain. Chang’s “compressed modernity” is meant to capture the spirit of the Korean developmental state and the experience of the people in attempting to achieve in the span of three decades what the West accomplished in three centuries. Here, however, it is the cultural developmentalism that I am interested in: as festival audiences gained full access to films previously censored or entirely banned by the military state, they often exhibited an excessive thirst for the kind of films they formerly did not have access to. Their excessive desire for “alternative films” and “art films” can be understood in this context, and KIFA films have become a means through which film festival fans satisfy their thirst for formerly inaccessible films and assert their “authentic” taste. Descriptions of different aspects of PIFF serve as bookends to the history of KIFA’s transformation. The main goal of this chapter is to analyze the new contexts in which KIFA films were consumed. For that, I present a thick description of the film festival where not only films but also filmmakers and consumers circulate. While this chapter is devoted to exploring the producers and distributors of media—such as independent filmmakers, film festival organizers, and film festival staff—it also addresses festival consumers as one of the main social actors that shaped the film festival landscape.1

L o c a l /Nat iona l /Gl oba l De si r e s The international film festival boom, in fact, arose in the context of the transformation of the local political system in South Korea. In 1991, a law to establish local governance was adopted for the first time in Korea, mandating elections for local-level legislators, mayors, and governors. Before this legislation, these positions were filled by central government appointees. Although passed in 1991, the law was not fully enacted and implemented until 1995, when animated local elections were held. This law also made it possible for local governments to seek economic, political, and cultural independence from Seoul. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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When I arrived at the PIFF screening sites, I was struck by the emboldened liveliness of the cityscape: the theater district was located in Nampodong, the busiest commercial area of Pusan, which was next to Chagalch’i Shijang, the largest fish market in the country, where live fish in gigantic tanks or buckets were sold to retailers as well as customers who wanted sushi on site. Across the wide avenue from this lively traditional fish market—inundated with the odor of fish, noise, and the bustle of merchants, local customers, and tourists—lay the more modern and commercial district of Nampodong. Here, modern buildings lined Kwangbokdong Avenue, intersected by narrow side streets with cramped stores where pedestrians rubbed shoulders. Nampodong was filled with offices, theaters, shops, cafes, and numerous restaurants. During the film festival, streets around the area were cleared of vendors in order to form an “Avenue of Films.” Deteriorating local theaters had been renovated after the launching of PIFF in 1996. Ultramodern theaters and multiplexes sprang up in the area, reinvigorating the cityscape. These newly built theaters accommodated the growing number of festival spectators who came to Pusan with certain expectations about the screening environment. The theater district became the most modern and central part of Nampodong where the global fast-food joints, symbolizing modernity and the middle class, were concentrated. The district embodied the “urban materiality” (Larkin 2002: 331) produced by, and thus expressive of, the heightened modernity that the international film festival introduced. The festival office, tucked slightly off one of the busiest streets, was once a large (approximately 20,000 square foot) warehouse. Festival staff were running around, answering phone calls, conversing with each other in an enormous open space, where the festival director—a former government bureaucrat with a great reputation for being open-minded, flexible, and forward-looking—and three festival programmers had their desks and workstations on a platform at the end of the office. When I first contacted PIFF in the summer of 2000, the festival chief director assigned me to a job as a translator and an assistant to the festival coordinator, Mun Jin-sok*. Mun worked closely with three of the programmers and with the “hospitality team,” which dealt with invitations extended to both local and international guests. The lodging the festival provided for most guests was spread out over the Nampodong area, except for the posh Paradise Hotel on Haeundae Beach overlooking the ocean. The EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Paradise Hotel, reserved exclusively for A-list guests, was one of the most luxurious accommodations in Asia. Adjacent to the hotel was the Pusan Yachting Center Outdoor Theater where the opening ceremony was held. Members of the hospitality team assigned each guest to a particular accommodation according to the guest’s level of “importance.” The aura of an upscale art film festival, with its significance to the local and national economy, seemed to appeal greatly to nationally recognized politicians and elites at PIFF screenings and ceremonies, where they fought over special seat and stage spots next to certain actors and directors. Staging their presence at the festival had significant meanings for these political elites as PIFF’s success was often framed in the media as a historical moment that demarcated the “restoration of Korean economic and cultural confidence in the post-IMF era” (Han 1998: 40). The hospitality team was under constant pressure also to deal with local bureaucrats’ demands for tickets. When I asked Hwang*, an outspoken female staff member on the hospitality team, whom she was exactly dealing with, she responded that the term “local bureaucrat” was often an overstatement. She complained that in reality she had to deal with various levels of public servants including local post office directors and their wives, who actually ended up calling the festival staff on behalf of their husbands. She added, “The wives of these local bureaucrats gang up and come to our office to demand PIFF ID cards and tickets for the screening.” With only wood panels dividing each department of the PIFF office, people could easily overhear conversations from team meetings and from those on the telephone. As I was running around doing chores, such as making photocopies for the festival coordinator, I would hear Hwang arguing and later yelling into the phone. One time, she hung up the phone and cursed out loud to herself: “Crazy bitches, asking for free tickets. . . . If they loved film so much, why don’t they pay for it!” Staff members would often joke about petty local officials wielding their “so-called power.” The motivations for local officials wanting guest ID cards and assigned (free) tickets, however, were not purely out of thriftiness or simply being “cheap,” as Hwang might want to put it. These major film festivals were where local politicians and bureaucrats could see and be seen by the major players at the highest levels of party politics. The discourse of the film festival’s impact on the local and national economy was often combined with Koreans’ desire to see Pusan as a springboard to regional soft power.2 International film festivals in Korea, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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to an extent, became an idiom for Korea’s ascendance as a regional pop culture export hub. The commentaries on the economics of PIFF also stressed that it had become one of “the most influential international film festivals in Asia.” There were numerous media reports—or rather assertions—that the Tokyo International Film Festival had been “aging” and that the Hong Kong Film Festival had lost its “edge” as its major players moved to Hollywood (Fifth PIFF Daily, special edition of Cine 21). The suggestion that PIFF had grown into the most influential international film festival in Asia was something that Korean reporters invariably wanted to confirm with non-Korean participants of the festival. In an interview with Sight and Sound film critic Tony Rayns, a PIFF advisor, a reporter from a respected Korean film magazine asked Rayns if he agreed with the assessment that PIFF was the “best film festival in Asia.” Beginning with an awkward pause, this British film critic, a strong advocate of Korean films in international film circuits, seemed to give in to the pressure and said, “Oh. . . . That is a very difficult question. To make matters simple, we can say that that is true.” But shortly after, he contradicted himself by adding, But there are other strong film festivals in Asia such as the Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo film festivals. Considering those, I would say that Pusan is not quite there. PIFF still has a little more to go to reach the top. . . . No one, however, will deny how impressive it is to witness this film festival growing at such a speed in just five years. The festival’s success in its first year in 1996 was unpredicted even by the PIFF organizers. (Oh 2000)

Although not all the foreigners at the festival were willing to simply stroke the Korean national ego, Korean audience members and reporters unabashedly asked the same question of the directors and producers during the Q &A sessions that I attended. Viewing PIFF as a litmus test of the viability of the Korean economic and cultural comeback in the region had a wide-reaching influence on the Pusan locals. For instance, during a brief taxi ride from one theater to another, the taxi driver and I started a conversation after listening to a news report on the radio. The report repeated the theme of how profitable films can be and how films can restore the economy of Pusan in the postIMF era. The city was making an enormous effort to accommodate the burgeoning film industry by giving generous permission to shoot scenes EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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on extremely crowded streets and giving film crews open access to fire engines and city facilities in a country notorious for municipal red tape. The Pusan municipal government’s reports repeatedly mentioned the city’s vision and potential as Asia’s prime yŏngsang sanŏp doshi (visual industrial city) evolving from the hosting of PIFF (Pusan Metropolitan City 2003a; Pusan Culture & Tourism Bureau 2003). The cab driver commented, “For the International Film Festival, the city had special English sessions for us to facilitate communication with foreign customers.” He then pointed to the “translation service” sign that was hanging inside the cab noting that English speakers may use this service by calling translators with the phone in the cab. He continued that he was advised to replace his cell phone with the new phone provided by the translation service. He lamented the high cost the festival had inflicted on him, but at the same time, he seemed to be proud of Pusan’s new-found identity as an “international city.” As examined so far, although PIFF’s existence was often discussed as being pivotal in reviving Pusan’s local economy, the yearning for the vitality of the local economy was deeply connected with the nationalist desire for regional and global influence. In short, it would be hard to understand PIFF as solely a local project. It emerged as a nexus of local, national, and global aspirations. Understanding PIFF as a local, national, and global project confirms current discussions on Korea’s globalization: the discussion of globalization in Korea has been focused mostly on the state’s central role and the persistent power of nationalism. Scholars (Alford 1999; Gills and Gills 2000; Samuel Kim 2000; for an assessment of these theories, see Shin 2006) of Korean studies argue that Korea’s drive for globalization was initiated and managed by the Korean state and that this has been a crucial feature of globalization in Korea. While I build on this discussion, I argue that attention to the state’s strong presence in “international film festival projects” should be counterbalanced by an appreciation of the unique roles that independent filmmakers and festival consumers play.

F i l m F e s t i va l C o n s u m e r s One day during the 2000 festival, as I was walking out of the theater that played the acclaimed German director Wim Wenders’ Million Dollar Hotel,3 admirers of Wenders formed multiple circles around him in EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Figure 6.  Film fans lined up for the opening ceremony at the Pusan International Film Festival. Photo by the author.

front of the theater and obstructed the flow of traffic on the street. The fans had just held a Q&A session with the director and they had followed him outside. A modestly dressed elderly woman, who had no idea what was causing the heavy foot traffic, yelled at the youths surrounding the foreigner, cursing them for obstructing the flow. She grudgingly cried out, pointing to the director, “He must be Jesus’ grandson for this place to be this crowded!” This comment only emboldened the fans to express their shared passion for Wenders by erupting in laughter and cheers. Another passerby, a middle-aged woman, who seemed just as oblivious to the interest in Wenders as the first commentator, responded, “Is he Yi Hanwoo?” Yi Han-woo was a German who had become a naturalized Korean citizen and transformed himself into a popular TV personality because he spoke perfect Korean with just a hint of a foreign accent. Wenders fans and PIFF participants probably had little reason to notice, but there actually was a striking resemblance between the German director and the local TV personality. Wenders stood there, wondering what the two women had said that caused his fans to erupt hysterically. In EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the midst of the waves of laughter, I realized how strangely segregated the two worlds were in the spaces where the festival film fans and local passersby—overflowing from a nearby fish market and the shopping district—intersected. Many people whom I encountered at PIFF were college students and young professionals who had traveled to Pusan from all over Korea. The “youthfulness” of the film festival was something that foreign media and spectators new to Korean film festivals regarded as unique. For instance, at a special event, called “A Conversation with the Makhmalbaf Family,” the renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his wife and three children, who were also filmmakers, held a conference for their fans. PIFF featured a special program entitled “Salaam Cinema! The Films of the Makhmalbaf Family.” Not surprisingly, a large number of Iranian film buffs showed up at the event, and the two-tiered theater became completely packed. Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in his opening remarks, said that he was struck by the number of youth filling the theater and expressed his curiosity about the makeup of the crowd. He asked those in the audience who were college students to raise their hands to confirm that almost 90 percent of the crowd were, in fact, college students. In a similar vein, at the Q&A session after the screening of Million Dollar Hotel, Wim Wenders introduced his film as “an empathetic love story of people in their twenties, just like the present audience.” Most of the filmmakers for whom I translated commented on the uniquely young crowd at PIFF, which they claimed to have never seen anywhere else. The distinctive youthfulness of the film festival was evidenced in the streets filled with roaming young festival-goers: college students and young professionals whose working hours were the longest in the world but who still managed to take part in cultural events such as PIFF.4 This particularity of PIFF was often a topic that many at the film festival liked to talk about. Chae Kyung-mun*, a well-known female film critic with whom I happened to share a staff hotel room, mentioned that she had been to many film festivals around the globe but had never seen such a young crowd as in Korea. During quick breakfasts we shared before we left for the theaters, this “youthfulness” was often a topic of discussion. Chae’s husband, the former editor of a popular film magazine and a respected film critic, had taken her along to international film festivals worldwide. Chae, who was definitely more widely traveled than the rest of the staff, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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compared Korean international festival scenes to those of Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, and many more places where “local gray-haired people stay in line to get tickets.” This characterization of the festival, accompanied by its representation in the media as “young, lively, and growing,” fit into the existing discourse on the emerging middle-class youth and consumer culture of South Korea. Since the 1990s, the emergence of shinsedae (the new generation), a term coined by the Korean media and used in academic discourse, has become an increasingly important topic for the Korean public. The term shinsedae in fact refers to people who belong to a specific sub-class, in contrast to the expansive implications of the word “generation.” It usually denotes college students, recent graduates, and young professionals from upwardly mobile middle-class or upper-middle-class families. The Korean new upwardly mobile younger generation was imagined, in public and academic discourse, to savor a new age of unlimited affluence unknown to the older Korean War generation, which had been deprived not only of wealth but also of cultural sophistication. The emergence of the “upwardly mobile younger generation” and the expression of their identity through conspicuous consumption have fascinated Korean social scientists since the early 1990s, because most scholars read these developments as an indicator of Korea’s entry into the stage of full-fledged late capitalism. In the tradition of social science in South Korea, debates over defining the distinctive characteristics of Korean capitalism have proliferated. Choosing the correct adjective to use in modifying “capitalism” when describing Korean society has posed a considerable challenge. As a result, various ways of referring to Korean capitalism have been contested among Korean social scientists since the early 1980s: “semi-feudal capitalism,” “colonial semi-capitalism,” “statemonopoly capitalism,” “neo-colonial-state-monopoly capitalism,” and so forth.5 In short, Korean capitalism was not supposed to be as genuine as the capitalist systems of Western societies. Invariably, Korean capitalism has to have some adjective denoting it as an “abnormality” and distinguishing it from the “authentic” Western form. The emergence of “new middle- and upper-middle-class youth,” however, was viewed as a watershed marking Korea’s entry into the group of genuinely Western capitalist systems characterized by the triad of a flexible mode of production, high consumerism, and neoconservative politics. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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The image of PIFF as a “young” film festival also played out among foreign participants in various unexpected ways. When Wim Wenders announced that he would come to the festival, he stated that it would be on the condition that he would not hold any one-on-one press interviews for his new film, Million Dollar Hotel. PIFF organizers considered his appearance critical because Wenders was a high-profile guest who could attest to PIFF’s growing reputation. One of the chief complaints about earlier PIFF events was the absence of recognizable faces from outside Korea. The appearance of such a high-profile guest would dispel suspicions that PIFF had not risen to the first tier of international film festivals. A drawn-out email exchange passed back and forth between Wenders’ assistant and the festival coordinator to arrange and confirm the invitation. While he refused to give press interviews, Wenders expressed great enthusiasm to lead a Q&A with “Korean film students.” Although the Q&A following his film was not intended to be a “student only” event, somehow Wenders expected Korean spectators at his film screening to be “students.” Although this narrative was not coordinated by any sort of mastermind, it seemed to be the overarching theme describing the relationship between Wenders and the Korean spectators. As I was randomly flipping through the TV channels at my parents’ house in Taegu two weeks before the festival, I happened to watch a popular TV show called Cinema Paradise, introducing the three PIFF programmers. The chief programmer was talking about the contribution that PIFF made to the promotion of Korean and Asian cinema. He advised new visitors to the festival of several “rare finds,” such as films from Pakistan, Brazil, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and mainland China. Following the chief programmer, another programmer, Chŏn, explained the significance of inviting Wim Wenders. Chŏn—who had been an active participant of the yŏnghwa undong (film activism movement) in the late 1970s and the 1980s—mentioned that in 1975 the film activist group he was part of had invited Wenders to give a lecture at their meeting. I had already heard the same comment by programmers at the press conference held one month before the opening of PIFF. Programmer Chŏn, at the main press conference held at the Paradise Hotel, proudly announced that “the world’s most famous filmmaker, Wim Wenders, is on the guest list.” Then he sentimentally added, “The students who invited him to the vibrant film activism scene EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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twenty years ago will now greet him at PIFF as the leaders of Korean society.” During the festival, I also heard many PIFF staff repeating the same line that the small group of “film activism followers” a decade earlier— who were in the small room where Wenders was lecturing—turned out to be the decision-makers in Korea’s film institutions and industry today. The pseudo master-apprentice relationship that PIFF programmers and organizers deployed to imagine their relationship with Wenders was also appropriated by festival film fans. The film festival Q&A sessions turned into spaces where the younger generation festival-goers expressed their cultural sophistication when it came to film. This included addressing the challenges the young fans faced in cultivating such sophistication in Korea’s “culturally deprived” surroundings: after the screening of Million Dollar Hotel, whose tickets were sold out in the first couple of hours, the huge two-tiered theater was packed with fans, waiting for the Q&A session to start. Many fans were in fact moving to the front rows to fill in the seats of some people who had left the theater before the Q&A started. The screening of this film, which was 2 hours long, started at 7:30 pm, and was followed by the heated Q&A that lasted until past 11 pm. Many fans expressed very personal stories of how they had “felt connected” to the director despite the limited availability of his films in the “culturally barren” land of Korea. A male in his late thirties stood up and said that he made enormous efforts to see pirated tapes of Wenders’ films obtained from his friends who studied abroad. He continued that he had been dreaming about “making a film as poetic as a Wenders’ film.” He enthusiastically announced, “As you paid homage to the great directors such as François Truffaut and Yasujirō Ozu in your film’s credits, I will pay homage to you when I make my film.” This man also shouted out “I love you” in accented German, prompting other film fans to laugh with empathy at his excessive enthusiasm. Another film enthusiast in his late thirties, whom I had a chance to interview later, also spoke about his pursuit of Wenders’ films despite their limited availability. At the Q&A session, Kang, whose name I found out later, prefaced his lengthy question about the use of space in Wenders’ films with a story about his long and agonizing journey to obtain Wenders’ memorabilia. In the crowded theater, Kang addressed the German director: EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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My dream has just come true. I feel indebted to the three programmers for bringing you here. It’s a huge victory for the citizens of Pusan to have you as a guest. Your film Paris, Texas moved me so much that I tried my best to purchase the sound track of the movie, even when I was serving my mandatory time in the military, which gave me little freedom to travel. After I was discharged from the military, I searched every single music store whenever I went on a business trip to Seoul to buy the Paris, Texas sound track. This was before the internet era, so it took ten years to locate the CD.

Kang, an architect accompanied by his 35-year-old wife, was generous enough to talk to me after the Q&A. We were all sitting in a coffee shop in the theater district and introduced ourselves to each other by exchanging business cards. Even as midnight approached, the street was busy and filled with people and glowed with neon signs tightly stacked side by side and on top of each other, as was typical in any city in South Korea. The couple, who were both film enthusiasts, had met in college and had two young children. Kang handed me his business card, which had the name and address of the architecture firm where he was a partner. Mrs. Kang, a full-time housewife, also presented me with her “business card,” which included her name and “occupation”: “cinephile.” They said that it was a substantial time commitment for them to come out to participate in the PIFF screenings because their weekends were filled with plans to attend weddings of relatives, friends, and co-workers. Kang said that he had to give up attending an old friend’s wedding that very day to attend the Wenders’ screening. He said that it was not easy to get tickets to Million Dollar Hotel. Since he did not want to repeat the mistake of the previous year by showing up at the ticket sales booth to find that tickets were sold out, he turned on the computer and stayed on line with his fingers on the mouse ready to click minutes before the official on-line sales opening. He was disappointed that the film for the closing of the festival sold out as he was purchasing tickets for the opening film. Mrs. Kang’s identity as a “cinephile” would not have been sustained without the support of her husband. They had an extensive DVD collection ordered through Amazon.com, which I estimated cost them at least several thousand dollars. Since foreign films other than Hollywood movies were rarely screened in Pusan, the Kangs had to rely on their private collection, which required not only capital but also extensive EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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research on the internet. As expressed by the Kangs, the sense of disenfranchisement in the cultural arena among the Pusan locals was quite strong. This sense of disenfranchisement was reiterated by comments I often heard from Pusan locals: “If Seoul was considered marginal in the global circulation of movies, Pusan was the margin of the margin until PIFF was launched.” Both Mr. and Mrs. Kang agreed that the film festivals provided rare occasions for Pusan locals to see films otherwise never shown in Pusan. Unlike the Kangs, most participants of the festival were not locals. Groups of young Koreans carried huge backpacks looking worn out from partying at night and hopping from theater to theater during the day. Baek Young-mi*, a 26-year-old Seoulite who was sitting next to me in a theater playing the Iranian film The Circle (Jafar Panahi, dir., 2000) later said that she planned to stay in Pusan for seven days. This was her fourth day into the festival, and she proudly mentioned that she had seen twenty-six films thus far. She told me that she had recently quit an office job, and while in the midst of looking for another job had decided to come to PIFF to watch the films she was waiting to see after reading about them in film magazines. She was an active participant of internet film fans’ groups and was an avid listener of a popular radio show that specialized in sound tracks. The fans of this radio show also hosted screenings, which she religiously attended. After listing numerous film groups that she was part of, she added, “I wasn’t part of the on-line film communities until recently, so there was no way to reach for help in terms of learning about films. Now that I’ve learned something about film, there’s so much to watch, and so many films that I really need to watch.” Her fear that she was somehow “behind” her peer film fans and needed to “catch up with them” was also reflected in her comment on her faithful participation in international film festivals that two other cities were hosting: the Chŏnju International Film Festival and the Puchŏn International Film Festival. Similarly, Seo June-pyo*, a 25-year-old Pusan native and college student at Kyŏngbuk National University located in Taegu, my hometown, was working as a festival volunteer to make use of the time between his military discharge and his return to school. As a fervent film fan, even if the volunteer work was not as glamorous as he would have wished and mostly consisted of the mundane work of delivering boxes of catalogues, he felt he could not miss the chance to be part of this huge EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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event. When I asked him about his experience at the Puchŏn International Film Festival, which he had attended, he described the “exhilarating” experience he had, pulling all-nighters for three days watching films and talking with other film fans. When I asked him if he felt a sense of “community” while talking to other film buffs, he responded positively. However, he was also quick to remind me that the “community” was not just the individuals who happened to come together at the festivals but groups of on-line or off-line film fan clubs that traveled to these various film festivals.

A lt er nat i v e Ci n e m at ic T i m e Given the scarcity of art film houses in Korea, film fans were willing to travel to international film festivals such as PIFF to see recently released art films. In a way, for film fans, attending film festivals was a path to reclaiming the authenticity of their tastes. Given their past experience, before the emergence of numerous film festivals in Korea, fans mostly relied on makeshift art video and independent video houses, a.k.a. “cinematheques.” Jung, a high-ranking PIFF official, when asked about the local makeshift “cinematheques” that proliferated before the emergence of film festivals and more serious “art houses,” commented, “Those are places that screen low-quality video tapes. Tapes are wrecked by repetitive copying. These places meet the demand of people who were willing to watch movies with inaccurate subtitles.” Film festivals gave Koreans access to celluloid copies of films that were properly obtained, circulated, and screened through official channels. In the past, they were out of the reach of local consumers such as the Kangs, Young-mi, and June-pyo. The new experience offered to Korean film spectators presented a “Korean characteristic.” Film critic Chae Kyung-mun noted that Q&A sessions or “guest visits” that followed most screenings at Korean film festivals were much less prevalent at film festivals in other parts of the world. She observed that Korean fans were usually “very uptight” at socalled art film screenings, and “showed no response, negative or positive,” during the screenings. At the PIFF Q&A, she added, Korean fans seem to be extremely diligent about asking directors myriad questions. Her comments seemed to parallel Bourdieu’s analysis of cultural capital in French society: EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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At equivalent levels of educational capital, differences in social origin are associated with important differences in competence. . . . These differences [in competence] become all the more striking . . . as one moves from the most ‘scholastic’ and ‘classical’ areas of culture to less legitimate and more ‘outlandish’ areas of the ‘extra-curricular’ culture, which is not taught in schools but is valued in the academic market and can often yield high symbolic profit. (Bourdieu 1984: 63) Such competence is not necessarily acquired by means of the ‘scholastic’ labours in which some ‘cinephiles’ or ‘jazz-freaks’ indulge. . . . Most often it results from the unintentional learning made possible by a disposition acquired through domestic or scholastic inculcation of legitimate culture. (Bourdieu 1984: 28)

Chae Kyung-mun’s comments revealed the deep anxiety about Korean film buffs’ manner of acquiring “taste”—locally dubbed yŏnghwa mania (film mania)—that she perceived to be different from their Western counterparts: Korean film buffs, even those who were equipped with educational capital, had to intentionally “study” in order to acquire a certain “taste.” Refined taste in France is not something people acquire by pedantic labor but that which is inculcated/inscribed in the body (as one might see in Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”) and is expressed as “natural.” Korean film buffs’ competence to appreciate these “festival films” was, however, acquired, Chae seemed to argue, through diligently participating in certain activities, such as going to a number of international film festivals and asking directors numerous questions in a serious and scholarly manner. As we were walking through the crowd of young people in front of the theater after breakfast, Chae commented, “Treating even cultural activity as something to be probed, studied, and memorized . . . that’s very Korean,” alluding to the notoriety of the competitive Korean school system, which drives students to memorize and cram for exams day and night. I had to agree with her as I was feeling stifled walking in the middle of a sea of people in the theater district. If Chae viewed mundane competition as the very social fabric of everyday life in Korea, then her argument that fervent film fans’ practices of film watching would not be an exception to this rule made sense. So what happens when Korean film spectators diligently treat film festivals as crucial learning experiences and when people faithfully engage in what can only be described as film festival pilgrimages? Film scholar EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Charles Acland (2003) notes that the emergence of wide releases and multiplexes, which have become the globally dominant industry structure in the ways films are consumed, also changed the “structures of the cinematic experience.” He claims that the impact wide releasing has had on the landscape of our current cinema cannot be overestimated. We now have an ever more coordinated continental, and burgeoning global, cinema culture. The orchestration of film releasing offers an expectation of simultaneity, 6 one that might be described as a material and imagined sense of the “everywhere” of current cinema, something with which moviegoers are amply familiar from the many trailers promising this ubiquity. And while there is a rising simultaneity for one strata of highly visible texts, there is an even wider gap in the appearance of more marginal contributions to the current cinema, which may take longer to arrive, if at all, on local screens. (2003:162)

Acland’s model of “synchronized” media practice is an invaluable reference point in discussing how hegemonic and singular global cinematic culture has become. I want to make a counterpoint, however, to Acland’s argument since what I observed in Korea, especially at numerous film festivals, was an emergent local festival culture that was presented as an alternative to the highly coordinated global cinema culture Acland examines. In the case of Korea, the mushrooming of international film festivals, propelled by the growing economic autonomy of local governments with nationalist and global desires, had enabled Korean film fans to live according to a different timeline, a “film festival time” characterized by a sense of simultaneity. This simultaneity experienced by certain South Korean social groups—determined by their education, age, aspirations for upward mobility—by no means implies that film festival time represents the dominant form of film consumption in Korea. But it is distinct from the “accelerated cinematic time” described by Acland that dictates mainstream film consumption practices, largely dominated by Hollywood and Korean commercial films. The kinds of films that the alternative cinematic time presents are the latest and diverse works of “World Cinema” (not Hollywood Cinema) in which “New Korean Cinema” plays a central role. What kinds of Korean films become championed by film festival programmers and fans who “live by” such alternative cinematic time? Through these film festivals, emergent yet potent narratives of EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the Korean national cinema were freshly constructed. It is worthwhile to note that the narratives of Korean cinema were articulated not only by the state but also by independent filmmakers. The following section examines that process.

S y m b i o s i s b e t w e e n F i l m F e s t i va l s a n d K I FA In the film festival context, where the authenticity of art film fandom was displayed and reclaimed, KIFA members strove to make sense of the meaning of their works. KIFA members’ navigation through the film festival spaces was filled with contradictions and dilemmas. In many cases, independent filmmakers themselves became the center of attention. For instance, one day I was walking with several KIFA filmmakers and Cho Min-do*, head administrator of KIFA, to attend one of the festival parties held at a traditional Korean mansion. As film fans recognized director Min*, who was well known to the public, they came up to her and shook her hand. Some asked for her autograph. Min, an outspoken female in her late thirties, produced several film documentaries on Korean sex slaves under Japanese colonialism and had become an instant star in the independent film circuit. Cho, who was a good friend of hers, teased her by saying, “I think there are more people who shook your hand than those who watched your movies.” Other KIFA members chuckled at Cho’s joke, observing how the female director reacted to the joke. As she rolled her eyes slightly and chuckled to herself, everybody got seated at the wooden open porch of the magnificent traditional house. Everyone was served drinks in elegant porcelain wine kettles and cups. KIFA members seemed to appreciate not just the free drinks but also the upscale atmosphere. The KIFA group was seated among local bureaucrats, national bureaucrats (mostly from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Film Council), and some foreign guests. The KIFA group, including Min and Cho, started talking with others who were sitting around the table. They seemed to have forgotten about Cho’s comment on Min. However, I knew that Min was irritated by the joke. Or, to put it precisely, she must have been irritated by the truth of the joke. I remembered that several months before, at a discussion held at a retrospective for Kim EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Dong-won, Min, who served as one of the panelists, expressed her discomfort at how intellectuals and social elites were reacting to her work. She commented, “I don’t appreciate the obsessive-compulsive cheering by intellectuals and fans who say that they are followers of my films. When the subject matter attracts social attention, they bestow you with honor and attention. . . . I don’t appreciate all these political gestures.” This indicated her discomfort with her fame that was based on these “political gestures” rather than on the artistic recognition she craved. Indeed, KIFA members were the recipients of the “political gestures” rained on them by festival staff, local politicians, and film fans. Kim Dong-won, whose works had been screened at PIFF multiple times, agreed that KIFA got favored treatment by festival staff. Some of the senior independent filmmakers were given the best accommodations and the most desired booth spots to distribute their films and publications. Although Kim felt that KIFA had become less appreciated as PIFF grew bigger, he thought that the award system seemed to favor KIFA members, who mostly submitted short independent films. The cash awards (1,000,000 wŏn) were given regardless of the length of the films, and according to Kim, independent filmmakers who made short films were offered the same award amount as “big names,” such as globally acclaimed directors Wim Wenders, Ken Loach, and Lars von Trier, all of whom had films shown at the PIFF screenings. “Proper” appreciation of independent filmmakers at PIFF was partially because of the network between KIFA members and film festival staff. Many film festival programmers and staff were part of the film activists’ circuit in the 1980s and early 1990s, although the degree of involvement varied depending on the individual. For instance, two of the three PIFF main programmers were well-known authors of articles and books that fervently supported film activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Two of the three associate programmers were still involved with KIFA activities. One associate programmer was working as the chief editor of the KIFA magazine and was the director of the KIFA’s own film festival. The other associate programmer was a member of KIFA and, although she had a day job as a lecturer at a university, her main freelance job involved writing about documentary films and videos, most of which were produced by KIFA members. The founder of PIFF, a wellknown film professor who came of age as a film critic in the 1980s, had engaged film activism in his earlier writings, so this old network was EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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apparent at PIFF from top programmers to mid-level administrators such as the festival manager, who used to work as an activist filmmaker herself. I do not think that the festival programmers and staff treated KIFA members favorably only because they used to be “old buddies.” This network operated and was growing stronger rather because of the symbiotic relationship between these festivals and independent filmmakers. One of PIFF’s official missions was to “promote Korean cinema to the world audience,” as stated by Kim Han-gil, minister of Culture and Tourism in Korea (PIFF 2000). The supply of Korean cinema premiered at PIFF, however, was still relatively small. Kwon*, one of the main programmers at PIFF, once noted, “A film festival is like sashimi. It has to be fresh. A film festival’s viability relies on how many premieres it can get a hold of.” In the festival catalogue I noticed the marks noting whether a film was a “world premiere” or an “Asian premiere.” No mark meant that it was a “stale fish.” Kwon complained about the difficulty of getting the premieres, especially in the Korean cinema section. He argued that of the fifty films produced in Korea each year, only a handful “deserved” inclusion in international film festivals, which were often promoted as “art film festivals.” According to Kwon, some well-made Korean films “aimed higher” and the producers preferred them to be premiered at more widely known international film festivals such as Venice, Berlin, and Cannes. For instance, the producers of Joint Security Area (2000) which became the highest-grossing film of the year while gaining critical acclaim, turned down invitations from the Korean film festivals. “Anyway, JSA is a Hollywood-style film and is in no way an art film,” he added sourly. His story shows that in the increasingly crowded film festival landscape, securing a steady supply of Korean films that fit the profile of “festival film” had become crucial yet difficult for Korean festival organizers/programmers. The void was, to an extent, filled by Korean independent films. In this sense, independent filmmakers took part in defining what Korean films “worthy of showcasing to the world” should look like. The preexisting and new relationships that the programmers and the staff happened to have with KIFA filmmakers came in handy in drawing independent films into the pool of films premiered at PIFF. However, this was not the only indicator of the symbiosis. KIFA was an important ally for the PIFF programmers in negotiating the state’s censorship policy. For instance, KIFA was the only organized group that EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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would put on a theater of resistance when it had to, and to the festival’s advantage. During the second PIFF (1997), for example, after finding out that the Korean Ethics Committee censored the independent films submitted to PIFF, independent filmmakers went out on the streets to protest. Feature films submitted to PIFF were subject to selective censorship (examination of the synopses of submitted films by the Ethics Committee), which was considered a lenient form of censorship compared to what commercially released films had to go through (see Chapter 2 for a detailed discussion of censorship in Korea). Originally, independent filmmakers participating in PIFF in 1997 refused selective censorship and called for a censorship-free environment at PIFF. In the end, KIFA members acquiesced to selective censorship but their protest brought attention to the issue of censorship affecting cultural realms that were thought to be catering to the global audience, who would expect to see films that reflect full artistic freedom. The protest was definitely negative publicity for the still-oppressive Korean government policy as it lent support to the festival programmers and staff who did not believe in any form of censorship, at least for international film festivals. After the fifth PIFF, Cho, who had mischievously picked on Min, was telling me about this demonstration at the KIFA office. He mentioned that the protest was, with hindsight, “silly and in a way hypocritical” since the protesters did not pull their films out of the festival. The protestors apparently blamed PIFF, which gave in to governmental pressure, but did not go “all the way” to boycott the festival itself. Cho mentioned that PIFF should have thanked the protestors because they probably helped the festival keep at least its partial-exemption status (which was thought to be at stake) from standard state censorship. When international film festivals began, mostly in 1997–1998, they were in constant conflict with the state censorship board, struggling to protect film festivals as censorship-free zones. This idea of certain film festivals getting more lenient treatment made them even more attractive to film fans: a film titled Lies (1999) received a great deal of publicity for its level of nudity unknown to the Korean public at the time and was banned from national release by the Ethics Committee. This film by Chang Sŏn-u, a widely acclaimed Korean filmmaker who also came from an activist background (see Chapter 1 on his contribution to the film activism discourse), however, was accepted by PIFF in 1999 for screening, with rumors flying around that the screening might be shut down after the first day. Mun Jin-sok, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the festival coordinator, who was discussing the issue of censorship in an interview, told me that tickets for the film sold out immediately. Tickets were hawked for 100,000 wŏn ($85) by scalpers when the film was shown at PIFF. People were willing to pay that much since they feared that the film would never be allowed to be released to the general public. Due to the public protests, along with favorable responses from international and Korean film critics, the film was later released at theaters with minor changes recommended by the Ethics Committee. The film festival, in the case above, became the agent for a change in the government’s censorship policy. KIFA was the only group that held street demonstrations, which were viewed as the material manifestations of the artists’ and festival participants’ disapproval of state censorship. The protests, to an extent, increased PIFF’s bargaining power when it came to negotiations with the Ethics Committee. After all, KIFA protestors represented Korean filmmakers’ determination to break free from state censorship and to express their pent-up creativity that had been suppressed under Korea’s earlier authoritarian regimes. Paquet describes the emergence of “New Korean Cinema,” which is diverse “in terms of subject matter, scale and genre,” and summarizes it as “free not only to realize a politically and socially informed cinema” but also free from the obligation to “speak for their nation and people” (2009: 3). I argue that this narrative of what Korean Cinema should look like in the 1990s and 2000s was often articulated in the negotiations between film festivals and the state. That was the case because PIFF was the initial and the most important showcase for Korean films, and its negotiations with the state, which was both supportive and controlling, were crucial. And the independent filmmakers’ overt objection to censorship played a big role in shaping the negotiations between the festival organizers and the state censorship board. In this regard, independent filmmakers took part in defining the expressive perimeters of New Korean Cinema.

Circu l ation of I n depen den t Films and Filmmakers For spectators at PIFF, whose sincerity in film taste was often questioned among themselves and by observers (such as film experts, critics, and festival staff whose opinions were represented in the media), having a EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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chance to explore Korean independent films was meaningful. In her essay entitled “Cinephilia and Necrophilia” (2000), the influential film critic Kim So-yŏng argues that countless art films circulating at newly established art houses and art film festivals were arriving “too late,” as they had already been canonized. Kim contends, These “art films” arrive in Korea as “myths.” For instance, My Beautiful Laundrette [Stephen Frears, 1985] opened in Seoul eleven years after its production. It took nineteen years for Eraserhead [David Lynch, 1977] to be released in Korea, twenty-five years for Red Psalm [Miklós Jancsó, 1972], and twenty-six years for The Spider’s Stratagem [Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970]. The problem this temporal delay poses is that the very edges of the social critiques that the films carried dulled as they aged. Therefore, moviegoers in Seoul, Korea, who are far away from any Western metropolis, end up watching films that are already fetishized by film critics or the media. The film texts were “subversive” when they were released in certain social contexts [such as Western centers]. But when separated from these social contexts, they become reified art objects. (2000: 228–29)

Kim uses the term “necrophilia” to describe Korean film fans who are loyal followers of “petrified Western art films.” At the end of the article, she urges that Korean film fans venture out further: fans should go beyond consuming fetishized Western art films and instead search for works that address the issues of here and now. She suggests Korean student films and independent films with the 1980s social movement legacy as alternatives and goes on to list the names of KIFA groups. These are not typical art films that the film festival crowd is normally attracted to, but to ignore these independent films would be to succumb to the very practices of “necrophilia.” At PIFF, I observed that many film fans who were self-conscious of this sort of prevalent critique watched KIFA films in search of “rare finds” that were not necessarily authorized by film critics, film magazines, and books. These film fans were usually not familiar with the Korean independent film tradition and came to watch KIFA films to find “something different” in the Korean film sections. During the fifth PIFF, when I observed the context in which the KIFA films were consumed, I realized that the independent film circuit fit uneasily into the festival. During the height of the political movement in the 1980s, spectators of KIFA’s films were imagined as a homogenous EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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group—the oppressed mass and those who were sympathetic to them. It was like preaching to the choir. With political radicalism now past, KIFA films were screened in the presence of heterogeneous audiences. Although this discrepancy between the spectators in reality and imagined spectators as a uniform group surfaced quite often, some KIFA members still held on to this dated idea of a committed, engaged audience as part of asserting their identity as activists. KIFA members were well aware of this gap, and some were confronted with its reality at a number of places at the festival where filmmakers and audience members met. For example, Tae June-sik, KIFA member and the most active filmmaker of Labor News Production, a documentary group with a long history of producing working-class-related films and videos, declared himself a hwaldonga (activist), not a kamdok (director) when a fan in the audience referred to him as such. At the Q&A session following the screening of his work Days of the Human, a documentary on the IMF-inflicted layoffs of labor union members, Tae was questioned by a young man who said that this was his first encounter with an independent Korean film. When the eager man asked where and how he could find more movies of this kind, more specifically films produced by Labor News Production, Tae bluntly answered that his organization makes movies for “the organized masses”—meaning labor unions—not for individuals. There was an awkward silence in the audience for a second or two. Telling his spectators that they were not the intended audience for his work seemed to have puzzled them. Though Tae made this comment in a matter-of-fact manner, the resulting discomfort attested to the shakiness of his assertion of his identity as an “activist” in the eyes of the audience at the biggest “art film festival” in Korea. On the other hand, other filmmakers from KIFA catered to fans seeking “unique film experiences.” Take the following story about Bae Hoyong, the person who attracted attention at the PIFF opening ceremony due to his disregard of the red-carpet dress code (see the Introduction), who was also at the hotel where volunteers including myself were staying. Since he was representing the Uri Film Collective’s documentary about the rural education movement, he was a guest at the hotel, waiting for the multiple screenings of the documentary and two Q&A sessions. The South Korean government at the time took extreme measures to close and consolidate small rural schools and the documentary was an in-depth investigation of how the local people started to fight against EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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the government’s measures in order to keep their schools open. Farmers of the affected village had attempted to open an independent alternative school, but the government had thrown up obstructions. One night, when I came back to the hotel, I heard a commotion in Ho-yong’s room. The hotel was mainly occupied by overworked PIFF staff members who were unhappy about being away from their homes in Seoul. It was usually extremely quiet since staff members tried to sleep after working all night during the intense festival schedule. The door to Ho-yong’s room was open, and I could hear people chatting and laughing out loud. As I was passing by, I noticed modestly dressed middle-aged farmers with tanned and wrinkled faces. Later, I learned that Ho-yong had invited the subjects of his film, the farmers, to visit the festival to meet with the audience during the Q&A session. Hoyong knocked on my door after the crowd left to hand me some grapes the farmers brought for him. He said that they had told him that there was no need to wash the grapes since they were organic and never sprayed with pesticide. Organic produce in recent years has become one of the obsessions of middle-class homemakers, due to the overall distrust of the government’s regulation of genetically modified food and food from China. I realized that this specific produce had become the main source of livelihood in a nearly destitute rural village. Then, without giving it much thought, I thanked Ho-yong and shared the organic grapes, which would have been quite pricy, with my pleasantly surprised roommates. The next day when I went to the screening of Ho-yong’s film, twothirds of the theater’s one hundred seats were filled. At the Q&A session following the screening, not only Ho-yong but also the villagers were introduced to the audience. Although the villagers had lost their battle to keep the local school in the village, one of the farmers repeated a line from the film: “The fight is won as soon as it has begun.” Interestingly, the audience directed most of the questions to the villagers instead of to the producer, asking about the current situation of the village. In a sense, the display of the villagers rather than the display of the film became the focal point of the Q&A session. I spotted Mrs. Kang (who appeared earlier in this chapter) in the audience. I thought this strange “show-andtell” Q&A might be the only time for Mrs. Kang, a well-to-do housewife, to meet the producers of the organic foodstuff that she purchases at high-end supermarkets in her suburban neighborhood. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Bringing the subjects of documentary films to screenings happened often among KIFA filmmakers. Some activism-oriented KIFA documentary filmmakers felt they were not the sole producers of the films. The subjects of their films were collaborators and co-directors; therefore, inviting them to “Meet the Director” or attend Q&A sessions made sense. However, in reality, it created an odd space where the farmers, rather than the representation of them, were displayed in front of urbanites whose “distinctive taste” in art film viewing brought them into this same space. As I stated in the Introduction, I agree with anthropologist Christopher Pinney’s (2002) contention that images do not lose their aura in an age of mass image/media production, contrary to what Walter Benjamin (1969) had predicted. Pinney’s analysis became extremely useful in analyzing how the activist/independent films in the 1980s and early 1990s were not consumed as film texts devoid of aura but instead were re-enchanted as political rituals (see Chapter 1). The re-enchantment of activist films, however, was not limited to the 1980s and early 1990s. In the ethnography I have presented above, independent films acquired a cult value as the film festival audience became introduced not only to films but to film subjects. In the eyes of the upwardly mobile middleclass spectators, the unmediated contact with the film subjects whose lives exist far apart from their everyday lives symbolized the authenticity of the independent films they were consuming. The authenticity of the films they consumed, in turn, functioned as proof of the authenticity of their tastes. It has been argued that middle-class status symbols have changed throughout the three decades of Korea’s rapid economic growth (Koo 1993a; Kyong-Dong Kim 1993). During the era of developmentalism, the Korean middle class existed mostly in an economic sense. The middleclass phenomenon in South Korea during this period was intimately associated with material improvements in life and upward social mobility. But what used to be the status symbols of the middle class during these years—refrigerators, black-and white-televisions, telephones, or stereo sets—are no longer viewed as middle-class symbols, as they are now possessed by the majority of working-class and peasant families (Koo 1993a: 56). Hence, the upwardly mobile middle class may be in search of a new set of distinctive cultural markers, such as attending film festivals and watching international films and independent films, to EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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replace material goods that are no longer markers of upper-middle-class status. Although I am hesitant to subscribe to the linear aspect of this explanation, I believe that my study does illustrate the performance of upper-middle-class cultural identity through the consumption of festival films and practices of film festival attendance. KIFA’s independent films signal political legitimacy, moral privilege, and authenticity for film festival consumers who displayed their cultural capital through their consumption of KIFA films packaged and consumed as “art films.” The international film festivals that have proliferated in Korea have become the critical locus for imagining compressed modernity among festival consumers. These film festivals have become sites of complex intersections involving independent filmmakers, their films representing the “silenced voices of society,” and festival audiences, who consume “international festival films” as distinctive upper-middle-class indicators. The cultural catching-up, fraught with anxiety, has been played out at these international film festivals as boundaries between the underclass and the upper-middle class were freshly drawn and performed.

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Epilogue New Cultural Spaces, New Sensibilities

At a KIFA forum in 2001, I witnessed a speech by Hong Min-ho*, a guest speaker who had made activist films in the 1980s and was then a highranking Film Council official. He strongly encouraged independent filmmakers to push for film policy reforms that would provide greater access to funding and more venues for independent filmmakers. Hong added, “the political mood might change very quickly. So we need to cross the point of no return so that things will not revert back.” Reflecting on this statement given many years ago, I am amazed by the guest speaker’s insight and foresight. His words demonstrate an acute awareness of the importance of the political conditions in which the reforms he was pushing for were occurring and furthermore show the careful planning and strategy of this former film activist who had become one of the movers and shakers in the Korean film world during the Kim Dae-jung administration. Indeed, the reform era did not last forever, just as he had predicted, and some of the important changes made during the reform era face significant challenges today. In a nutshell, this book is about the social actors like Hong who shaped the cultural sphere of the reform era, and how in return they were transformed by this process. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Throughout this book, I have examined the new filmic spaces, institutions, and practices I saw emerging from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s as a result of the complex alliances between independent filmmakers, the state, new-found contributors of capital, and audiences. The transformation of this alliance after the reform era, under the administrations of Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013–present), is not within the main scope of this book. From recent conversations with my informants, however, I learned that most of the structural and institutional changes that were implemented during the reform era are still in place although they have been challenged by the conservative administrations of recent years. Since the election of Lee Myung-bak, there has been a backlash against “leftist cultural power” (chwap’a munhwa gwŏllyŏk), a reference to a perceived concentration of power in the hands of progressives in the arts and cultural production. The independent film venues and educational institutions established during the reform era have been forced to comply with a new bidding system imposed by government agencies, and there has been significant shuffling within these venues and institutions since 2008 (Sohn 2012). However, since the KIFA-initiated policies during the reform period were aimed at achieving a lasting effect (“cross the point of no return”) as Hong suggested, the institutional shifts that were made during the reform era could not be easily overturned. Korea’s recent conservative administrations were able to put enormous strains on the institutions and venues established during the reform era, but some of the reform-era changes have been cemented as enduring cultural legacies. The government could not simply take away what the Korean film audiences already took for granted, such as watching “social issue” films at independent film theaters, an institution achieved through KIFA’s efforts in the 2000s. For instance, the Film Council’s financial support for IndieSpace, an independent film theater established by KIFA in 2007, was cut and the theater was closed in 2009. However, the closure did not last long because filmmakers, actors, film educators, film production companies, and fans raised funds to resuscitate IndieSpace and it reopened in 2012 (Interview with Kim Dong-won in December 2011). Cultural producers and consumers who established themselves in the reform era did not simply disappear, of course, and fought to keep much of the legacy of the reform era intact by raising funds to support independent film theaters and educational organizations. Therefore, although EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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this book focuses on the reform period, discussions of the cultural infrastructure formed during that period are still very relevant today. Before I discuss the larger implications of this study, let me recapture some of the points made throughout the book. As seen in the earlier chapters, the postauthoritarian South Korean state attempted to gain hegemony in pursuing the restructuring of the Korean economy and society in the postauthoritarian era by capitalizing on the symbolic power of the 3-8-6 generation. As a result, many 3-8-6 generation film activists/independent filmmakers were able to mobilize the cultural repertoires and still-operating networks of the 1980s film activism by turning themselves into important players in elite state institutions and in negotiations with the purveyors of capital (Chapter 2), in national protests against trade liberalization (Chapter 3), and in new cultural venues targeting upper-middle-class audiences (Chapters 4 and 5). Throughout these chapters, I examined how KIFA and activist filmmakers appropriated the 3-8-6 generation discourse, which acquired political cachet at these various sites. More specifically, in Chapters 1 and 2, I examined the historical transition from the 1980s film activism to the new postauthoritarian environment in which independent filmmakers produced and circulated their films. Even though the sense of a tight political community that bound filmmakers and audiences through the ritualized consumption of the activist films faded, KIFA still functioned as a power broker in negotiations with the state film agencies, the new contributors of capital, and the purveyors of elite cultural venues. All these social actors have sought legitimacy in the new political environment through alliances with KIFA. In Chapter 3, I explored the process by which KIFA became a symbol of Korean cultural nationalism by resisting the U.S. pressure to open up the Korean film market. During the protests against U.S. efforts to have the Korean screen quota system abolished, KIFA members became foregrounded as a symbol of the Korean anti-Hollywood movement as they effectively mobilized past activist cultural repertoires and social networks. Due in part to public support for the protectionist film regime, South Korea’s film industry has been extremely successful, even compared to those in countries that have had historically stronger film industries. At the heart of this success, I argue, was KIFA’s potent use of symbolism, which turned the screen quota movement into a critical EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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nationalist agenda. Through KIFA’s participation, the screen quota protest transformed itself from a local struggle based on industry interests into a national and even a global (anti-Hollywood) struggle. Throughout the book, I have examined how KIFA as a symbol has been consumed at various sites of alliances among different social actors (the state, film activists, capitalists, and consumers), with KIFA’s social network and discourse of moral privilege operating as social and symbolic capital during the reform era. My discussion of feminist independent filmmakers in Chapter 4 fits into the theme of unexpected alliances. Through the examination of the trajectories of two female independent filmmakers, I explored how the gap between the globally and institutionally connected male leaders of the KIFA film groups and female rankand-file members widened. The examination of these female filmmakers demonstrated how the 3-8-6 generation’s discourse and network had functioned as a very gendered ideological apparatus, as those who drew on moral authority and exclusive social networks based on such moral privilege were mostly senior male leaders of the KIFA circuit who could effectively mobilize their symbolic and social capital. The marginal position of female independent filmmakers within KIFA reminds us that the spaces of articulation between the state, capital, and social activism were never uniform or gender neutral. These marginal feminist filmmakers, however, were not left out of the above-mentioned articulation between the center and the margins. Instead, they found unexpected allies among upwardly mobile middle-class film festival audiences seeking films with distinct tastes and new political and cultural sensibilities. The new elite cultural venues turned into spaces where female KIFA members could contradict and challenge the hegemonic gendered activist culture. This alliance between rank-and-file female independent filmmakers and film festival audiences illustrates how the spaces for resistance were sometimes constituted through unforeseen processes and interactions and not necessarily through conscious political practices. The new venues have become spaces of open possibilities. Throughout the chapters, and especially in Chapter 5, I have looked at how independent filmmakers found screening spaces predominantly at high-brow exhibition venues run by corporate conglomerate latecomers to the art scene. Unlike the makeshift exhibition spaces that activist films occupied in the 1980s and early 1990s, today art galleries and film festivals screen independent films mostly geared toward EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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upper-middle-class audiences seeking cultural capital and a means to express their identities. These new spaces for cultural production and consumption do more than simply indicate the institutionalization of social activism. They also invite new political voices that had been marginalized in the dominant culture of the independent filmmakers’ world. Drawing a strict dichotomy between a “community mode” versus a “commodity mode” in independent filmmaking does not capture the complexity of independent filmmaking and consumption. The cultural spaces in which independent filmmakers interact with other social actors today defy easy categorization. How then do we conceptualize these new cultural spaces in which current KIFA films and filmmakers themselves circulate as signifiers? Can the alliance/articulation that I have described in this book be characterized as a co-optation of social activism in contemporary South Korea? Such a characterization seems to be fitting in many respects, but it does not help us to fully grasp the complex practices of the co-optors. In fact, members of KIFA who were “co-opted” by the state transformed the ideology and practices of state film agencies. For instance, despite the shrinking of the public sector in South Korean society as a whole after the Asian financial crisis, the public film sector gradually expanded as a result of many policies pushed by KIFA and 3-8-6 generation filmmakers under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Film policies, especially considering state censorship, have reflected the more democratic mood of postauthoritarian politics. The KIFA network’s advocacy of these policy changes cannot be overlooked, and in this regard, it deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of freedom of expression in South Korean cinema. This development is a key factor in explaining the emergence of a Korean cinema of diverse content and style, which further exploded on the global stage as hallyu (Korean Wave), a term referring to the spread of Korean popular culture around the world. As film scholar Kyung Hyun Kim observes, “It would be a mistake to deny any kinship between hallyu and the liberal sociopolitical mood that fostered it” (2011: 3).1 In short, independent filmmakers played a key role in defining the expressive parameters of Korea’s flourishing cinema. Understanding these parameters requires recognizing the historical and social conditions that made possible certain cinematic representations. In this regard, I present this book as an institutionally grounded ethnography of such historical and social conditions. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Here, I draw on Sonia Alvarez’s work on Latin American feminists to characterize this complex and changing relationship. In discussing Latin American feminists who entered the state or the United Nations arena, she says that the word “co-optation” does not do them justice since “feminist discourses now circulate in and potentially destabilize the dominant political cultures of a wide variety of social, cultural, and political actors and institutions in Latin America” (1998: 304). She then suggests using the notion of “absorption” instead of “co-optation” since the former leaves room for agency. I am not sure if “absorption” is the best word to capture the sense of agency that people who are “absorbed” into the “center” play, but I agree with the spirit of her argument and her emphasis on the importance of agency. Throughout the book, I have used KIFA as a window to illuminate how independent filmmakers were changing film institutions, the film industry, policies, and the ways people produce and consume film in South Korea. And in turn, the processes of “co-optation” changed the very social fabric and culture of KIFA itself, as the new venues for independent film circuits allowed new expressions of different political and cultural sensibilities by underrepresented groups (e.g., feminist independent filmmakers and “personal” independent filmmakers). So-called personal films within the independent film circuit foregrounded the politics of family, gender, and reflexivity that had been ignored by the old activist politics. More specifically, concerning the female filmmakers within KIFA, the new cultural institutions, networks, and fora opened up possibilities for feminist independent filmmakers to contradict and challenge KIFA’s gendered culture and its representations. In the end, the process of “cooptation” changed what constitutes the “political” in the independent film world. The meaning of the “political” on the level of audience is also changing. Despite the hegemonic nationalist obsession with film, Korea’s festival sites turned into an “alternative public sphere” (Hansen 1991), which defused the nationalist project. I recognize how my examination of the new audience—shinsedae (the new generation)—at the international film festivals could be expanded to a larger discussion of an alternative public sphere in South Korea. The new audience—consumers caught up in the “international film festival fever,” who grew up in a new age of unlimited affluence unknown to previous generations and who were equipped with cultural capital—became unexpected allies who embraced the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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different political sensibilities expressed by underrepresented groups within KIFA, such as feminist independent filmmakers. The “progress” that Hong advocated in the vignette that opened this chapter was not achieved in a linear way, but through meandering and often unpredictable routes. In postauthoritarian South Korea, the legacy of the 1980s activism has become a cultural repertoire appropriated for various political purposes by different social groups seeking political legitimacy. And this is at the core of the articulation between state, capital, social activism, and audience in the film sector, and more broadly, South Korean society. An unforeseen consequence of this alliance/entanglement, however, is the emergence of new cultural spaces that allow expressions of underappreciated political and cultural sensibilities. The spaces of resistance are formed through unanticipated alliances and social processes. This perspective has been personally enlightening for me, a member of the 3-8-6 generation who had lamented the waning of its activism and had not fully recognized the emergent forms of new social activism. Generally, Marxist literature tends to view resistance as external to power. Therefore, the conceptualization of resistance in relation to power could suggest a mechanical metaphor of solid bodies coming into contact (Reed-Danahay 1993). In contrast, Abu-Lughod (1990), highly influenced by Michel Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980), warns against this tendency to view resistance as existing “outside” of power.2 She argues that “resistance should be used as a diagnostic of power” and that the existence of resistance does not confirm the failure of systems of power. I agree with this argument to the extent that the relationship between power and resistance is much more complex and complicit than it seems. I want to emphasize in this ethnography that there were instances in which resistance emerged from “inside” power and transformed it from within. Being cognizant of the contingent yet transformative nature of resistance is fundamental to understanding South Korea’s ever-changing cultural landscape.

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Notes

Introduction 1. KMDb (Korean Movie Database), http://test.kmdb.or.kr/statis/statis_04. asp, accessed Jan. 8, 2013. 2. “South Korean Box Office Hits Record High in First Half,” Screen Daily, www.screendaily.com/news/south-korean-box-office-hits-recordhigh/5058024.article, accessed Jan. 8, 2013. 3. The term “New Korean Cinema” has been used by many authors including Shin and Stringer (2005) and Paquet (2009). According to Vick (2009), the term is “often invoked to describe the Korean film industry’s rather sudden rise to domestic and international prominence” and is “less a moniker for a coherent artistic movement than” the product of the post-1990s social and political transformation. Vick notes that “in contrast to movements like the 1980s Hong Kong New Wave, which is primarily associated with the specific genre of action movies,” New Korean Cinema’s “main characteristic is its diversity, the way its filmmakers combine styles and genres, and incorporate influences from around the world and throughout film history” (2009: 38). I agree with Vick that the term has been used in this broad sense and that it is more of a reference to films produced in the postauthoritarian context than anything else. 4. Reader’s Guide to the Social Sciences (London: Routledge, 2001), s.v. “Asian crisis, 1997–98,” http://ezproxy.knox.edu:2099/entry/6780820/, accessed Jan. 31, 2009. 5. Festival Director Kim Dong-ho, opening remarks at the Pusan International Film Festival press conference, Sept. 4, 2000; also in the “Forward” by Kim Dong-ho in PIFF (2000). For a more detailed report, see Pusan Metropolitan City (2003c). 6. IndieStory, www.indiestory.com/English/html/indie_Resources.asp, accessed May 27, 2014. 7. The question of “When did Korean history begin?” is not easy to answer, but I start with United Shilla because although its borders by no means reached as far north as those of the current-day North Korea, it still unified the southern part of the Korean peninsula. Before the establishment of United Shilla, various kingdoms existed throughout the peninsula, but discussion of this EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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history is not within the scope of this book. The unique aspect of Korean ethnic nationalism is well charted in Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy by Gi-Wook Shin (2006). 8. The number killed in the Kwangju Uprising has been disputed for a long time but in his carefully researched volume, Gi-Wook Shin estimates that there were five hundred civilian deaths and over three thousand injuries (2003: xvii). 9. Namhee Lee also acknowledges that the discourse of moral privilege is not unique to the South Korean social movement, and can be found in other contexts such as the 1960s New Left in the West and China’s Tiananmen protests (2002: 137). 10. The “screen quota” is an anti-trust regulation to prevent Hollywood films, which currently control 85 percent of the global market, from dominating the Korean film market, according to Shim Kwang-Hyun (2000), one of the most ardent advocates of the screen quota system in Korea. This regulation required Korean theaters to screen domestic films for at least 146 days a year, with a possible 40-day reduction to 106 days (30 percent of the year) available by petition. The temporal scope of my research does not cover the drastic reduction of the screen quota after the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (2006), which reduced the required number of days to 20 percent of the year.

Chapter 1 1. Koo argues that the Korean minjung movement and Latin American populism were similar but not identical. The latter “occurred in the early decades of [the twentieth century], when the economies of Latin American countries were dominated by landed oligarchic interests tied to the metropolitan capital. The populist movement was, therefore, formed by an alliance between the national bourgeoisie and the popular sectors against the oligarchic structure” (Koo 1993b: 143). In contrast, the Korean minjung movement lacked the bourgeoisie element, “so minjung as a concept is more directly opposed to monopoly capital, precisely because monopoly capital represents the dominant mode of production in South Korea today” (Koo 1993b: 143). In short, compared to Latin American populist alliances, minjung is a more homogenous category in terms of class character. 2. According to Chungmoo Choi, the madang is “a courtyard or a space within the wall around the house” (1995:114). Choi notes, “however, in the farming community, madang also means a shared space where people carry out communal activities (ture), such as harvesting. . . . The very root of the maskdance drama during the pre-capitalist period lies in the collective activities of ture. It was at this madang that the mask-dance drama and the shamanic ritual festivals had been performed for the well-being of the community. This was the space where tenant farmers communally harvested, but their year’s work was ruthlessly taken away by the landowners, mostly of the ruling class, the EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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yangban. There, it is imagined, the collective will to struggle arose and solidarity was attained. In an expanded sense, the communal ritual-festival is coterminous with the people’s struggle against the ruling class” (Choi 1995: 114–15). 3. Nam Lee (2005) discusses “collective authorship” and “personal authorship” in a similar manner. 4. In the context of 1980s activist films, yŏnch’ul was a preferred word choice. Yŏnch’ul and kamdok, however, have been used interchangeably although they have different nuances, as I illustrate here. Out of this film activism context, yŏnch’ul has been used more in the context of TV show production. 5. I should also note that not all East Asian countries that incorporate Chinese characters in their languages use the same characters to refer to the word “film director.” The Chinese use different characters, daoyan, which means “a person who leads/induces acting.” Japanese use the same characters (pronounced gandoku) as Koreans do for kamdok. 6. KATUSA is an acronym for Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army. Korean men who had to fulfill their mandatory military service often opted to serve in the KATUSA because of the relative freedom it offered as well as the opportunity to learn English. 7. Influenced by worldwide decolonialization, Third World filmmakers were forging a militant anti-colonialist cinema in documentary form in the late 1960s. Disputing the hegemony both of the dominant model of “First Cinema” (commercial cinema) and of auterism (“Second Cinema”), these filmmakers proposed instead a “Third Cinema,” “independent in production, militant in politics, and experimental in language” (Shohat and Stam 1994: 261). 8. Chang has been recognized as one of the three most prominent New Korean Cinema auteurs by many including Kyung Hyun Kim (2004), who wrote an extensive monograph in English on contemporary Korean cinema. Chang’s best-known films include Seoul Jesus (1986), Lovers in Woomuk-Baemi (1989), To You, from Me (1994), A Petal (1996), Lies (1999), Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002), So Cute (2004), and My Love, Korean Cinema (2008). 9. For further discussion of classic narrative style, see Bordwell and Thompson (2001). 10. The main protagonist in Mother, Your Son is a conservative mother who turns into an “understanding comrade” after her son gets involved in the student movement and is brutalized by the police and the National Security Agency. 11. Considering that the population of South Korea was approximately 45 million and that the film was distributed only through political underground networks, this number of one million viewers is noteworthy.

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Chapter 2 1. The Korean Independent Film Committee is different from KIFA (Korean Independent Filmmakers Association), which I worked with. 2. As mentioned in Chapter 1, the NL (National Liberation Front) emphasized North Korea’s “self-reliance” ideology, juche, in support of South Korean revolution. Its opponents PD (People’s Democratic League) viewed North Korea in a much less favorable way, and argued that the revolutionary agency was the South Korean working class. 3. Also, most KIFA members, when asked about the prevalence of the term kamdok over yŏnch’ul in recent years, expressed their discomfort at being called kamdok due to the sense of hierarchy the word evokes, even though they call each other kamdok most of the time. They considered it a “Japanese colonial legacy,” which was usually associated with the remnants of military culture in all aspects of social life in Korea. In addition to this suspicion of the legacy of this term, some KIFA members admitted that the self-congratulatory and self-absorbed usage of the term kamdok became much more prevalent as international film festivals sprang up in Korea in recent years. “We are wined and dined, and revered as kamdok,” commented a KIFA member who was also a film festival regular. Whether they politically agreed or disagreed with the historical and social implications of this locution, however, kamdok was the working term among independent filmmakers. 4. The viewpoint that independent films have been incorporated into mainstream film industries is, of course, not unique to the Korean case. The following, which describes the intertwined relationship between American independent films and Hollywood, is quoted from a widely used standard film studies textbook, Film Art, by Bordwell and Thompson (2001): “By the end of the 1990s, the two trends were merging in surprising ways. As independent films began to win larger audiences, major studios eagerly acquired distribution companies like Miramax and October Films. Much media journalism fostered the impression that Hollywood was becoming ‘subverted’ by independent filmmaking, but in fact more and more the major studios controlled audiences’ access to ‘independent’ productions. The Sundance Film Festival, founded as a forum for the off-Hollywood scene, came to be treated as a talent market by the studios, which often bought films in order to line up the filmmaker for more mainstream film projects” (2001: 425). 5. Since the early 1990s, there has been an explosion of independent film/video festivals, some of which have been sponsored by Korean conglomerates, as seen above, while others have been organized by independent filmmakers themselves— the Indie Forum Film Festival, the Broken in Seoul Video Festival, the Seoul International Queer Film & Video Festival, and the Labor Film Festival, just to name a few. 6. In the early 2000s, theatrically released “commercial films” went through the Public Performance Ethics Committee after editing was done. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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7. Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, www.leeum.org/eng/aboutleeum/message.asp. 8. In the part above in which I discuss general trends, I use the actual names of the chaebŏls because they are public knowledge. In the following discussion, however, I remind readers that I am using pseudonyms—including “Art Zen”— for the companies to protect their identity. 9. According to Nowell-Smith, “During the late 1920s, Japanese cinema was in the process of ‘modernizing.’ Studio heads had built a vertically integrated oligopoly comparable in many ways to America’s” (1996: 420). This system was adopted by the Korean film industry and has been referred to as the doje system since the Japanese colonial period. 10. Newcomers to this social ladder are called mangnae (the baby of the family) by the other members of the film crew regardless of their age and become responsible for various kinds of menial chores.

Chapter 3 1. Despite this reduction, the market share of Korean films did not drastically decrease after 2006. This fact might pose a serious challenge to the screen quota movement’s claim (of the late 1990s and early 2000s) that without the screen quota system the Korean film industry would collapse. 2. UIP is the distributor for Paramount, Universal, and MGM/UA. 3. Grant and Wood confirm the 85 percent figure by quoting a 2002 UNESCO report that “85 per cent of the films shown around the world originate in Hollywood.” They also list various “indicators of Hollywood’s global reach” (2004: 118–20). 4. This organization claims to be an NGO, but one of its sources of funding is the Korean Film Council, which is basically a semi-government body. Whether an organization is an NGO in its strictest sense is a sensitive and ambiguous issue in Korea. 5. See the Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images (CDMI) website, www.screenquota.org. 6. Some of the participants explained head shaving as a form of self-immolation by referring to a Confucian concept. Most of them in person or in their written accounts (e.g., Kim Jin-kyun 2002) quoted the same phrase from a Confucian text, Hyogyŏng (The Book of Filial Piety): “Children’s body, hair, and skin are given by the parents. They belong to the parents, and children should attend to them with utmost care. This is filial piety.” Since the body is given to a person by his ancestors, head shaving is a sacrilegious act that transgresses the integrity of the physical body, which is the embodiment of the perpetuation of a lineage. This quotation sounded quite out of place, considering that the 1980s movement had more affinity with insurgent traditions such as shamanism than hegemonic Confucius values. Indigenous EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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shamanistic and folk traditions were considered to have been threatened by the dominant Confucian ideology that supposedly sanctioned the social hierarchy of the Chosŏn dynasty. As anthropologist Kim Kwang-ok, who has written extensively about Korean popular movements, argues, “Since shamanism has been branded by the state as a superstition and not a ‘proper’ religion, it is identified with the alienated space that is negated by the official discourse of the state. . . . Furthermore, the purported underlying ideology of shamanism is used to proclaim marginal people’s direct confrontation with absolute state power” (1994: 209). Although this kind of image of the Confucian tradition as a suppressor was a common wisdom in the 1980s radical movement, participants in the head-shaving ceremony at the screen quota movement rallies, some of whom claimed to be “offspring” of the 1980s, quoted this sentence quite often when they tried to explain the meaning of their action. This, however, is not the only account that was given to me. I had several opportunities to interview Chang Dong-kyu*, a man in his late thirties who was an active member in the Screen Quota Emergency Committee from 2000 to 2003. He noted that head shaving represented “acting in unison” that transcended individual differences. Chang mentioned that all men of his generation had to shave their heads at least twice in their lives. First, when Chang was a middle school student, all of the freshmen male students had to shave their heads and wear black school uniforms, a practice often associated with the militarized Japanese colonial legacy. Until the mid-1980s, secondary school students had to abide by this kind of educational regulation without exception. Second, he was forced to shave his head when he fulfilled his mandatory military service. He said that both of these experiences stripped him of his individual identity and forced him to be “a mere cog in the military-like school system” (he mentioned that no teacher called him by his name but by the number assigned to him in the classroom) and the military of the authoritarian state that drafted him. Chang then added that he had shaved his head several times as a student movement leader when he was in college. Chang observed that head shaving was a common—compared to other forms of more violent reactions— yet minor manifestation of resistance during the 1980s and a way to express in unison opposition to the military regime. “What matters is the collective body not the individual,” he mentioned, as he was pointing to the similarity in all of these “head-shaving” practices that he experienced. 7. The logic of the pro-screen quota movement, in fact, does not simply rely on discourses of media nationalism. Shim Kwang-Hyun argues that film is the only “cultural item” that has been recognized as a cultural exception when other items, such as the publication and music industries, have been fully opened to the outside world. He argues that “while publications and music albums are sold as individual objects/goods, films cannot be sold directly to consumers. Films are sold via theaters. . . . Therefore, films cannot simply be compared with the market opening of the publications and music industry. . . . Films are the starting point of the ‘window effect’ that begins with theaters [and then] EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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moves to videos, televisions, satellite and cable broadcasting, on-line networks, and so forth. Thus, whether or not films have the opportunity to be screened in theaters determines the economic and culturally added-value of the media industry as a whole. For this reason, films should be protected as ‘cultural exceptions’” (Shim 2000: 3). 8. NIMBY has been discussed in a negative light in general, especially implying a loss of a sense of community (“Shiljongdoen gongdongch’e ŭishik” [Lost Sense of Community], Hankyoreh Daily, May 29, 1997). More specifically, the term “NIMBY” has been often used to describe the community resistance mobilized to prevent opening of health and social service facilities, such as homeless shelters and hospitals for handicapped children, out of fear of the possible effect on real estate values and the “adverse influence” on the children of families in upper-middle-class neighborhoods (An 1997; Choe 2000). The same term has been also used to describe residents’ protests against the government’s plan to build a nuclear waste storage facility on an island off the coast of southwestern Chŏlla Province (“Waste Treatment Plants Have Nowhere to Go Due to Protest,” Korea Herald, May, 11, 2000; “Fighting NIMBY,” Korea Herald, July 28, 2003). In short, various types of collective action have been lumped under “NIMBY,” which had a strong negative connotation. 9. Gi-Wook Shin (2006) defines cultural nationalism as “nonpolitical, cultural arenas to raise national consciousness, rather than directly opposing colonial power” as used in Robinson’s (1988) work. Although Robinson’s analysis is of the 1920s Korean Production Movement, which was aimed at helping ethnic Korean businesses, the trajectory and the unfolding of the internal conflicts of this movement seem to be very similar to those of the screen quota movement of the late 1990s and 2000s. My use of the term, however, is different because Robinson analyzes colonial Korea in which direct political opposition had more serious consequences. However, the split between the political and the nonpolitical does not seem to be as clear-cut in contemporary Korea as it was during the colonial period. 10. “The literal translation of the title of this film is ‘Girls High School Ghost Story (Yeo-go-kuei-dam)’. A ‘kuei-dam’ (ghost story) is a traditional Korean genre in which the souls of those who have died horribly are not permitted to go on to the next world. This film takes the ‘kuei-dam’ as its basis and locates the narrative within a contemporary girls high school. This smooth juxtaposition of an ancient horror genre and the more modern anxieties of Korean high school struck a powerful chord in its young audience, turning the film into an instant box-office success” (Koreanfilm.org, www. koreanfilm.org/kfilm98. html, accessed April 16, 2014). 11. Kobiz (Korean Film Biz Zone), www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/05_ About/01_05_Nature.jsp, accessed Dec. 20, 2010. 12. Ibid. 13. See the Korean Film Council website: www.kofic.or.kr/contents/board, “2000 Korean Film Industry Yearbook,” accessed Mar. 14, 2002. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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14. See Klein’s (2008) excellent analysis of Bong Joon-ho’s films that appropriate Hollywood genre film conventions for exploring Korean social and political issues. I think such a combination was present in Shiri although it was not as developed as in Bong’s films. 15. See the discussion of the “moral bankruptcy” of the film industry under the military regimes in the Introduction. 16. Tension between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism erupted over the state’s strategy in the Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations in 2001, 2002, and the spring of 2003, which stirred debates in KIFA as to the future strategy regarding the screen quota.

Chapter 4 1. For more detail on these categories, see Chapter 1. 2. The word ppalch’isan is derived from a Russian word, partizan, which has been used to refer to Korean communist guerillas of civilian background during and shortly after the Korean War (1950–1953) (Choi 2001). By the time I conducted this interview, Jin-yeol had finished filming the Korean female ppalch’isans who were unknown to the public even in the presence of the male ppalch’isan survivors (POWs) who were spotlighted in the mainstream media after the South Korean–North Korean summit meeting in June 2000. 3. Kwon herself became a victim of the Anti-Communist Law when she, then a student activist, was sexually tortured by police after her arrest in 1986. This incident, in turn, mobilized mass demonstrations against the morally bankrupt military regime. For the significance of this incident in the gender politics of the Korean democratic movement, see Jeong-Lim Nam (2000). 4. Fictive kinship terms have been commonly used in activist organizations since the early 1980s. Although there were men in the AFMD, the discourse of “motherhood” was central to the self-representation (see the official website, www.minkahyup.org) of the organization and the public’s overall perception. Even though the AFMD was at the forefront of various political struggles, it was represented as “caregivers” who fed and nurtured the members of other movement organizations, providing home-cooked meals while younger activists were engaged in strikes or protests. 5. During the 1980s many student activists, after graduating from college, went to hyŏnjang (sites of labor struggles). Since employers were aware of these practices that would severely compromise their control over their workers, fake résumés and IDs were indispensable items for activist college graduates to enter blue collar occupations. 6. For details, see Chapter 1. 7. KTUC is the predecessor of the current Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, often known by its acronym KCTU. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Comprehensive Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 12/25/2019 8:27 AM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 831545 ; Park, Young-a.; Unexpected Alliances : Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea Account: s2953473.main.ehost

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Chapter 5 1. The lives of film festival consumers can be only partially contextualized. Couldry (2003) searches for an “emergent method” in addressing the transient mediated world. My field site, like his, was “not the type of permanent living or working space in which ethnography has normally been conducted” (2003: 51). In researching Korean film fans and festival participants that fit into the category of “accidental communities of memory” (Malkki, 1997: 92), I follow Couldry’s call for “renouncing the aim for an impossible immersion in context and instead seeking as much context as could reasonably be obtained” (2003: 51). 2. The impact PIFF has had on the national and local economy has been reported to be substantial. According to the Pusan Development Institute, PIFF created 1,150 jobs nationally (including 857 in Pusan) and generated 53,600,000,000 wŏn in national business revenue in 2010 (www.ytn.co.kr/_ ln/0103_201004161744133406, accessed Dec. 29, 2010). For further discussion of PIFF’s economic impact, see Pusan Metropolitan City (2003a, 2003b). 3. Wenders has worked both in the United States and Germany, and is widely known for such films as The American Friend (1977), Paris, Texas (1984), and Wings of Desire (1987) (Nowell-Smith 1996). 4. South Korea in 2001 still had the world’s longest workweek: 55.1 hours over six days. Until 2001, South Korea was the only member of the 29-nation OECD where Saturday was a workday (Baker 2001). 5. There is an enormous literature regarding this issue published during the 1980s among Korean social scientists influenced by Marxism (Kim Dong-chun 1992; Kim Chae-hyŏn 1997). 6. Acland’s concept of “simultaneity” seems to have been informed by Appadurai’s (1996) “media-scape” constituted through “electronic capitalism.” Appadurai’s concept took cues from Benedict Anderson’s (1983) “imagined communities” mediated through “print capitalism.”

Epilogue 1. Kim further argues that reducing hallyu to social/political factors is too limited and calls for a stylistic and thematic examination of hallyu films. 2. For a focused discussion of power and resistance, see also Aretxaga (1997), Ortner (1995, 1997), and Sivaramakrishnan (2005).

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Selected Filmography

Changsan-gonmae Film Collective (Chang Dong-hong, Chang Yun-hyŏn, Yi Ŭn, dirs.). 1989. Oh, Dream Land (O kkum ŭi nara). Changsan-gonmae Film Collective (Chang Dong-hong, Chang Yun-hyŏn, Yi Jae-ku, and Yi Ŭn-ki, dirs.). 1990. The Eve of a Strike (P’aŏpchŏnya). Kang Che-gyu (Kang Jae-gyu). 1999. Shiri (Swiri). Kim Dong-won. 1988. Sanggyedong Olympics (Sanggyedong ollimp’ik). ——— . 1999. Another World We Are Making: Haengdang-Dong People 2 (Ttohanaŭi sesang: Haengdangdong saramdŭl 2). ——— . 2003. Repatriation (Songhwan). Kim Jin-yeol. 2005. Forgotten Warriors (Ich’yŏjin yŏjŏnsa). Kwak Kyŏng-t’aek. 2001. Friends (Ch’ingu). Park Ch’an-uk. 2000. Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyŏngbi kuyŏk JSA). Park Ki-hyŏng. 1998. Whispering Corridors (Yŏgo kwedam). Seoul Film Collective. 1982. P’annori Arirang. ——— . 1984. That Summer (Kŭ yŏrŭm). ——— . 1986. Blue Bird (Parangsae). Seoul Visual Collective. Hong Hyung-sook, dir. 1997. On-line: An Inside View of Korean Independents (Pyunbangesŏ chungshimŭro). Jo Jai-hong, dir. 1999. Shoot the Sun by Lyric: The Fight for the Screen Quota in Korea (Noraero t’aeyangŭl ssoda). Tae June-sik. 2000. Days of the Human (Inganui shigan). Yi Jae-gu. 1992. Open the School Gate (Tach’in kyomunŭl yŏlmyŏ). Yi Sang-in. 1991. Mother, Your Son (Ŏmŏni, dangshinŭ adŭl).

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Index

Abelmann, Nancy, 19 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 22, 169 Acland, Charles: on accelerated cinematic time, 152, 179n6; on simultaneity, 152, 179n6; on wide releases and multiplexes, 152 AFMD. See Association of Family Members for Democracy African cinema, 41 Alagappa, Muthiah, 17 Alford, C. Fred, 142 Alvarez, Sonia, 17, 18; on co-optation vs. absorption, 168 American Cultural Center, 58 Anderson, Benedict: on imagined communities and print capitalism, 179n6 Another World We Are Making: HaengdangDong People 2 (Ttohanaŭi sesang), 28, 29 An Sŏn Hŭi, 177n8 anthropology (of media), 2, 22 Appadurai, Arjun, 179n6 April 19 Uprising, 10, 32 Aretxaga, Begona, 179n2 Argentine Grupo Cine Liberación, 41 Arirang Yŏnghwa Yŏn-guhoe (Arirang Film Research Group), 49–50 Armbrust, Walter, 22 Armstrong, Charles K., 17 art film houses, 14, 16, 29, 30, 69–70, 71, 86, 137, 150, 158 art galleries, 137, 166–67 Art Globe*, 70 Art Zen*, 69–70, 175n8 Asian financial crisis of 1997, 4, 13, 21, 57, 58, 61, 167 Askew, Kelly, 22 Association of Family Members for Democracy (AFMD), 120, 121–22, 123, 178n4

Australian independent filmmakers, 28–29 Bae Ho-yong*, 6–7, 15, 159–60 Baker, Michael, 179n4 Benjamin, Walter: on art’s disenchanted quality, 22–23, 161; on mass production of art, 22–23, 161 Berlin International Film Festival, 155 Berry, Chris: on commodity mode, 29, 60, 167; on independent filmmaking, 28–29; on Kim Dong-won, 28, 29; on socially engaged mode, 29, 47, 48, 60, 167 Bertolucci, Bernardo: The Spinder’s Strategem, 158 Bolivian Ukamau Film Collective, 41 Bollywood, 21, 106 Bong Joon-ho, 107, 178n14 Bordwell, David, 91–92; Film Art, 174n4 Botta, Mario, 69 Bourdieu, Pierre: on cultural capital, 150–51; on habitus, 151; on social and symbolic capital, 19–20 Brazilian Cinema Novo, 41 Brecht, Bertolt: on distance effect, 41 Broken in Seoul Video Festival, 174n5 Burri-Nenova, Mira, 102 Cannes International Film Festival, 155 capitalism, 35, 36, 106, 145, 172n1, 179nn5,6 Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), 94–95 Chae Kyung-mun*, 144–45; on film mania, 151; on Korean competitiveness, 151; on Q&A sessions, 150–51 chaebŏls, 14, 23, 69, 166, 175n8; film festivals funded by, 50–51, 174n5; films funded by, 60–64, 96; layoffs by, 88, 129–30, 134

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196

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Chang, Kyung-sup: on compressed modernity, 138 Changsan-gonmae Film Collective: Oh! Dream Land (O kkum ŭi nara), 46; The Eve of a Strike (P’aŏpchŏya), 43–44, 47, 173n11 Chang Sŏn-u, 39–40; Lies, 156–57, 173n8; Lovers in Woomuk-Baemi, 173n8; My Love, Korean Cinema, 173n8; A Petal, 173n8; Resurrection of the Little Match Girl, 173n8; Seoul Jesus, 173n8; So Cute, 173n8; To You, from Me, 173n8 China, 111, 160; Deng Xiaoping, 68; independent filmmakers in, 28; Japanese invasion of Manchuria, 31; Tienanmen protests, 172n9 Cho Chun-hyŏng, 102 Cho Haejoang, 6 Cho Jae-hong, 43 Cho Min-do*, 53, 54, 62, 65, 153, 156 Chŏndaehyŏp (National College Students Association), 60 Cho Tae-yŏp, 60 Choe, Sang-hun, 18 Choe Wŏn-kyu, 177n8 Choi, Chungmoo, 33–34, 37, 39, 172n2 Choi, Jinhee, 2 Choi Ki-ja, 122–23, 178n2 Chŏn (programmer at PIFF), 146–47 Chŏn Yang-jun, 37 Chŏn Chan-il, 98 Chŏng Sŏng-il, 37 Chŏngnyŏn (Youth), 44, 45 Chŏnju International Film Festival, 16, 56, 73, 125, 127, 133, 149 Chosŏn dynasty, 176n6 Chun Doo-hwan, 10–11, 32–33, 36, 57, 59 Cine 21, 30, 92, 141 Cinema Paradise, 146 Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images (CDMI), 101–2 comfort women/sex slaves, 28, 153 Committee for Democratic Movement Activists’ Honor-Restoration and Compensation, 57, 58–59 commodification of film, 29, 34–35, 52, 64, 75, 100 communal production: in film activism, 25, 27–28, 35–37, 39, 40, 47, 48, 49–50, 54, 72, 109, 115–18, 135; and film collectives/groups, 12, 27, 36–37, 39,

49–50, 72, 117; and Kim Dong-won, 27–28, 36–37, 47 Confucianism: Hyogyŏng (“The Book of Filial Piety”), 175n6 conglomerates. See chaebŏls Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, 101–2 co-optation, 21, 24, 167, 168 Couldry, Nick, 179n1 cultural capital, 20, 150, 162, 168–69 cultural diversity, 101–3 cultural imperialism, 22, 38, 104, 105, 113 cultural nationalism: defined, 177n9; and film activism, 35–36, 37, 38, 42, 49–50; and screen quota movement, 23–24, 86, 165–66; and Titanic, 95–96. See also screen quota system/movement Cumings, Bruce, 9, 11 Daewoo, 61 Das, Veena, 23, 78 Dasgupta, Buddhadeb: The Wrestlers, 5 defamiliarization, 40 democratic generation (minjuhwasede). See 3–8–6 generation Diamond, Larry, 17 Dickey, Sara, 22 digital technology, 49, 112 Disney, 52 Divergence*, 125, 130–35 Docu Purŭn, 67, 72, 86, 93–94, 99–100, 122, 123; and Kim Dong-won, 15, 71, 93, 99, 110, 114, 117; and Kim Jin-yeol, 108, 109–18 Eckert, Carter, 10–11, 78, 106 economic conditions: direct foreign investment, 81, 82; and film festivals, 140–42, 145, 179n2; financial crisis of 1997, 4, 13, 21, 57, 58, 61, 167; Gold Collection Campaign, 86–89; and IMF, 4, 13, 58, 61, 81, 86–90, 96, 101, 129, 159; income disparity, 88–89; layoffs, 129–30, 134, 159; market share of Korean films vs. Hollywood films, 1, 79–81, 94–95, 107, 175n1; under Park Chung-hee, 10; statedriven development, 9, 27–28, 138, 142; state financing of films, 49, 115, 116–18; workweek, 179n4. See also chaebŏls; globalization

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index Ethics Committee. See Korean Public Performance Ethics Committee Eve of a Strike (P’aŏpchŏya), The, 43–44, 47, 173n11 family politics, 75, 168 Fanon, Frantz, 33 film activism (yŏnghwa undong): as anticommercial, 25, 31, 34, 52, 63–64; and cultural nationalism, 35–36, 37, 38, 42, 49–50; film circulation, 23, 31, 34, 35–37, 43, 67, 70–71; film collectives/ groups, 12, 27, 36–37, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49–50, 70–71, 72, 99, 108, 117, 126, 146–47; and film consumption, 25, 29–30, 35–36, 43, 44–45, 48, 71–72, 133, 158–59; films as political rituals, 26, 46, 161; films as socially engaged, 29, 31, 39, 42–47, 48, 71–72; and Kwangju Uprising, 33, 46; and labor unions, 12, 31, 42, 44, 71, 86, 113, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129–35; legacy of, 53–56, 63, 163, 169; and minjung cultural movement, 33–38, 39, 76; political radicalism of, 11–12, 42–44, 49, 50, 53, 108, 158–59; reenchantment of film medium in, 22–23, 24–25, 161; relationship to independent filmmaking, 6–8, 14–17, 24, 25, 30, 47, 49–56, 71–73, 75–76, 93, 108, 112–13, 146–47, 154–55, 161, 164; and student activists, 33, 39, 45–46, 74; and 3–8–6 generation, 30, 55, 128. See also Chang Sŏn-u; communal production; Docu Purŭn; Kim Dong-won film auteurs, 1–2, 47, 72, 173n8 film consumption: alternative cinematic time vs. accelerated cinematic time, 152–53; and film activism, 25, 29–30, 35–36, 43, 44–47, 48, 71–72, 133, 158–59; at film festivals, 137–38, 142–50, 157–58, 168–69, 179n1; and independent filmmaking, 75–76, 133, 137–38, 164, 166–67; by middle-class audiences, 7, 14, 21, 29, 133, 137–38, 145, 160, 161–62, 164, 166–67; taste of spectators, 31, 133, 138, 150, 151, 157–58, 161, 166 film fan clubs, 149, 150 film festivals, 72, 74, 135, 137–62; and alternative cinematic time, 150–53; emergence of, 4–5, 135, 150; film consumption at, 137–48, 142–50, 157–58, 168–69; and independent filmmakers,

197

137, 138, 153–57, 166–67; Indie Forum Film Festival, 53, 65, 66–67, 73, 174n5; and KIFA, 8, 14, 16, 66, 69–70, 86, 110, 137, 138, 153–57, 158–62, 169; middleclass audiences at, 137–38, 161–62; and modernity, 138, 139, 162; organizers of, 16, 70, 132, 138, 146, 147, 155; programmers, 37–38, 41, 42, 146–47, 154–56; Q&A sessions at, 143–44, 146, 147–48, 150–51, 159, 160–61; and social mobility/status, 24, 161–62; sponsored by chaebŏls, 50–51, 61, 174n5; staff of, 138, 139–40, 154; and state censorship, 66–67, 155–57. See also Chŏnju International Film Festival; Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) Film Institute*, 115, 116–18 film schools, 74, 93, 98 Fischer, Michael, 22 Forgotten Warriors (Ich’yŏjin Yŏjŏnsa), 115, 124–25, 178n2 Foucault, Michel, 169 Frears, Stephen: My Beautiful Laundrette, 158 Freedom of Expression Award, 123 free trade negotiations, U.S.-Korea, 77, 81–82, 101, 105, 172n10, 178n16; antifree trade movement, 14, 78, 85, 90–91, 94, 164. See also screen quota system/ movement French Cultural Center, 37, 41 Ganti, Tejaswini, 21, 22 gender politics, 75, 178n3; and women filmmakers, 24, 122, 123, 131, 132–33, 134–35, 136, 166, 168 German Cultural Center, 37, 41, 42 Getino, Octavio, 12; La Hora de los Hornos (Hour of the Furnaces), 47; “Toward a Third Cinema”, 41 Gills, Barry, 142 Gills, Dongsook, 142 Ginsburg, Faye, 22 globalization, 3, 101–2, 142; global cinematic culture, 22, 152 Godzilla (1998), 90–91 Gold Collection Campaign, 86–89, 95, 101 Gold Crown Film Festival, 67 Goldstein, Norm, 58 Gorky, Maksim: Mother, 44 Grand National Party, 5–6, 59 Grant, Peter, 175n3

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Guback, Thomas, 80 Guggenheim Museum, 30 Haetae, 61 hallyu (Korean Wave), 167, 179n1 Han Sŏng-hee, 140 Hanbo, 61 Hang’gukyŏng bŭlŏkbŏsŭtŏ (Korean-style blockbuster), 97–98, 99, 100, 103, 104 Han’guk Dongip Yŏnghwa Hyŏphyue (Korean Independent Film Committee), 49–50, 174n1 Hansen, Miriam, 168 Hindi cinema, 21 Hollywood films, 37–38, 52, 74, 97, 152, 174n4; anti-Hollywood protests, 11, 29–30, 79–80, 93, 103, 165–66; blockbooking of, 91–92, 99; export of, 22, 23, 31, 32, 34, 61, 78, 79–81, 82, 90–94, 95–96, 104, 148, 172n9, 175n3; Fatal Attraction, 79; global market share, 81, 175n3; influence on Korean films, 43, 98, 99, 107, 178n14; Korean domestic market share, 1, 80–81; New Hollywood Cinema, 41; production costs of, 80, 90–91, 96; Titanic, 95–96; wide release of, 98. See also screen quota system/ movement Holmlund, Chris, 52 Hong Kong: Film Festival, 141; independent filmmakers in, 28; New Wave cinema, 171n3; Shiri in, 96–97 Hong Man, 34, 35–36 Hong Min-ho*, 163, 164, 168 Hong Sŏng-a, 115 Horizon, 128, 129, 130 Human Rights Film Festival, 125, 132 Hwang Chŏng-mi, 131, 132–33, 134 Hyundai, 3, 69; union at, 125, 129–35 independent filmmaking: film circulation, 22–23, 24, 30, 69–71, 72, 74, 75, 157–62, 168; and film consumption, 75–76, 133, 137–38, 164, 166; and film festivals, 137, 138, 153–57, 166–67; films as commodities, 28–29, 75; finance of, 49, 60, 61–64, 72, 73, 115, 116–18, 164; identity of, 51–53; Korean vs. American films, 51–52, 174n4; personal/private films, 72–74, 76, 168; re-enchantment of film medium in, 22–23, 24–25; relationship to film activism, 6–8, 14–17,

24, 25, 28, 47, 49–56, 71–73, 75–76, 108, 112–13, 146–47, 154–55, 161, 164; term dongnip yŏnghwa, 49–50; women filmmakers, 24, 108–36, 109, 136, 166, 168, 169. See also Korean Independent Filmmakers Association* (KIFA) Indie Forum Film Festival, 53, 65, 66–67, 73, 174n5 IndieSpace, 164 individualism, 72–75, 89 International Coalition for Cultural Diversity, 101–2 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 4, 13, 58, 61, 81, 86–90, 96, 101, 129, 159 James, David E., 31 Jancsó, Miklós: Red Psalm, 158 Janelli, Roger L., 75 Jang Sun-woo, 39–40 Japanese colonial rule, 8, 9, 50, 87–88, 177n9; Chosŏn Film Regulations, 31, 32; legacy of, 175n9, 176n6; sex slaves under, 28, 153 Jenkins, Richard, 19 Jinro’s G-TV, 61 Johnson, Randal, 20 Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyŏngbi kuyŏk JSA), 97, 155 June Uprising, 11 Jung (PIFF official), 150 Jung Jin-man*, 54, 55 kamdok (“director”), 36, 54, 159, 173n4, 174nn3,5 Kang Che-gyu: Shiri, 95–99, 101, 104–5, 178n14 Kang Han-sŏp, 37 Kang, Jiyeon, 18 Kang, Mrs. (film enthusiast), 147–49, 150, 160 Kang, Shin-Who, 18 Kangwŏndo, 71 KATUSA (Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army), 38, 173n6 KIFA. See Korean Independent Filmmakers Association Kim, Byung-Kook, 4 Kim Chae-hyŏn, 179n5 Kim Dae-jung, 48, 69, 116, 163; death sentence, 57, 58, 59; economic policies, 4, 13, 58, 62; election of, 2, 12–13, 56–57, 58, 67, 68; Nobel Peace Prize, 58; policy

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index regarding North Korea, 99; and Pusan International Film Festival, 3–4; and 3–8–6 generation, 12–13, 14, 18–19, 20, 21, 56–60, 136, 167 Kim Dong-chun, 60, 179n5 Kim Dong-won, 43, 47, 48, 164; Another World We Are Making: HaengdangDong People 2 (Ttohanaŭi sesang), 28, 29; arrest, 14–15, 65; and Docu Purŭn, 15, 71, 93, 99, 110, 114, 117; early life, 26–27, 38; and KIFA, 14–15, 23, 26, 28, 30, 62, 63, 64, 67, 85, 94, 99, 103, 110, 154; on Korean Film Council, 67, 68; and Korean Independent and ShortFilm Festival, 67, 68; on PIFF and KIFA, 154; Repatriation (Songhwan), 30, 110, 115, 118–22, 123; Sanggyedong Olympics (Sanggyedong ollimp’ik), 26, 27–28, 36–37; and screen quota movement, 85, 94, 103; as spokesperson for Korean film industry, 29–30 Kim Han-gil, 155 Kim Ho-ki, 17 Kim Hong, 3 Kim Il-sung, 45 Kim Jae-kyu, 10 Kim Jin-yeol, 108–25, 135–36; Forgotten Warriors (Ich’yŏjin Yŏjŏnsa), 115, 124–25, 178n2 Kim Kwang-ok, 176n6 Kim, Kyong-Dong, 161 Kim, Kyung Hyun, 2, 31, 32, 39, 42, 46, 95, 173n8; on hallyu (“Korean Wave”), 167, 179n1 Kim, Mi-Hui, 81 Kim, Samuel, 142 Kim Sŏn-myŏng, 118 Kim So-yŏng: “Cenephilia and Necrophilia”, 158; on fetishized Western art films, 158 Kim, Sunhyuk, 17, 18 Kim Young-sam, 12, 56 Kirk, Donald, 87 Klein, Christina, 80, 107, 178n14 Ko, Eŭn-ki, 85 Koo, Hagen, 17, 33, 161, 172n1 Koolhaas, Rem, 69 Korea Employers Federation, 129 Korea Herald, 82, 88, 119, 129 Korea Housing Bank, 87 Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), 85, 86, 132–33, 178n7

199

Korean Film Council, 7, 16, 20, 175n4; Kim Dong-won on, 67, 68; relations with KIFA, 54, 55, 65, 67–69, 71, 73, 128, 153, 163, 164 Korean film industry, 13, 14, 15, 31–32, 54–55, 152, 174n4; and Kim Dong-won, 29–30; Korean-style blockbusters, 97– 98, 99, 100, 103, 104; master-apprentice system in, 51, 74–75, 93, 175nn9,10; under military regimes, 12, 20–21, 32, 37, 136, 178n15; New Korean Cinema, 1–2, 39, 152–53, 157, 171, 173n8; production costs in, 90–91, 96, 98, 101; and screen quota movement, 77, 78, 81, 82, 85, 93, 102, 103–6; share of domestic market, 1, 79–80, 94–95, 107, 175n1; as strategic national industry, 3; success of, 1–2, 22, 62, 107, 165; wide release in, 98. See also film activism; independent filmmaking Korean Film Promotion Committee, 20–21 Korean Independent and Short-Film Festival, 67–68 Korean Independent Filmmakers Association* (KIFA), 7–8, 43, 46, 50, 56, 69–72, 76, 168; Central Committee, 34, 74, 104; Declaration of Foundation, 51, 52; and film festivals, 8, 14, 16, 66, 69–70, 86, 110, 137, 138, 153–57, 158–62, 169; founding, 14–15, 53; Funding Committee, 62–64; and identity of independent films, 51, 52–53; Independent Film Quarterly, 85; and individualism, 73–75; and Kim Dongwon, 14–15, 23, 26, 28, 30, 62, 63, 64, 67, 85, 94, 99, 103, 110, 154; male leadership in, 24, 109; membership, 14; “Memory of Enchantment: Retrospective on 1980s Independent Films”, 53–55; as network, 7–8, 15–17, 70–71; Policy Committee, 71, 74; relations with Korean Film Council, 54, 55, 65, 67–69, 71, 73, 128, 153, 163, 164; relations with MJ Entertainment, 62–64; and screen quota movement, 23–24, 77, 78–79, 82, 83–84, 85–86, 88, 89–90, 93–94, 95, 96, 98, 100–101, 102–5, 165–66, 178n16; and state censorship, 65–67, 155–57, 167. See also independent filmmaking Korean National Security Agency, 36, 95, 98, 99, 173n10 Korean Production Movement, 177n9

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Korean Public Performance Ethics Committee, 65–66, 67, 156, 157, 174n6 Korean Trade Union Congress (KTUC), 128, 178n7 Korean War, 9, 31, 111, 117, 118, 122–23, 124–25, 178n2. See also Forgotten Warriors (Ich’yŏjin Yŏjŏnsa); Repatriation (Songhwan) Korea Times, 81, 88–89, 119, 129, 130 KTUC. See Korean Trade Union Congress Ku Bon-jin*, 55–56, 62, 63 Kwak Kyŏng-t’aek: Friends (Ch’ingu), 97 Kwangju Uprising, 10–11, 32–33, 46, 57, 58, 59, 172n8 Kwon Insook, 57, 119–20 Kwon Jong-hwan*, 37–38, 41, 42 Labor Film Festival, 125, 174n5 Labor News Production, 15, 72, 159 labor unions, 59, 159, 178n5; and film activism, 12, 31, 42, 44, 71, 86, 113, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129–35; Hyundai Motors union, 125, 129–35; Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), 85, 86, 132–33, 178n7; Korean Trade Union Congress (KTUC), 128, 178n7; Teachers Union, 44 Larkin, Brian, 139 Latin America: populism in, 172n1; Third Cinema in, 41 Lee Chan-gu*, 63–64, 74–75, 104 Lee Heon-ik, 32, 90 Lee Hoi-chang, 5–6 Lee, Hyangjin, 31, 32 Lee June-sang*, 54, 71, 127–28 Lee Myung-bak, 69, 164 Lee, Nam, 173n3 Lee, Namhee: on discourse of moral privilege, 19, 172n9 Lee Yŏng-il, 32 Lee Young-il, 32 Leeum, 69 Lent, John A., 31, 32, 65, 79 Lewis, Linda, 60 LG, 61, 69, 129 Lies, 156 Loach, Ken, 154 Lynch, David: Eraserhead, 158 MacArthur, Douglas, 124 Mackey, Eva, 135 madanggŭk (open-air folk theater), 33, 39, 40–41, 172n2

Makhmalbaf, Mohsen, 144 Malkki, Lisa, 179n1 Mankekar, Purnima, 22 Marxism, 36, 169, 179n5 mask-dance drama, 33, 34, 39, 172n2 Mexican film industry and NAFTA, 92 middle class: film consumption by, 7, 14, 21, 29, 133, 137–38, 145, 160, 161–62, 164, 166–67; and film festivals, 137–38, 161–62 Min Sung-mi*, 108–9, 125–36; Divergence*, 125, 130–35 Millennium Democratic Party, 59 Mingahyŏp. See Association of Family Members for Democracy (AFMD) Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 153, 155, 178n16 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 81, 82, 178n16 Ministry of Home Affairs, 87 Ministry of Information and Culture, 65 Minjok Yŏnghwa Yŏn-guso (National Cinema Research Group), 42, 49–50 minjung cultural movement, 12, 33–37, 39, 76, 172n1 Minkwang* Insurance, 70 Miramax, 174n4 MJ Entertainment*, 62–64 Mother, Your Son (Ŏmŏni, Dangshinŭ Adŭl), 43, 44, 45–46, 47, 98, 99, 173n10 Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), 81, 82 Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEA), 80 Mun Jin-sok*, 139, 156–57 Mun Pu-shik, 58–59, 60 Nam In-young, 76, 109 Nam, Jeong-Lim, 178n3 Nam Tae-je, 28, 36, 40 National Cinema I, 42 National Congress for New Politics, 130 National Federation of Farmers, 85 National Intelligence Service, 18 National Security Law (NSL), 9–10, 33, 96 neoliberalism, 21–22, 73, 75, 101–2 New Forum, 93 New Korean Cinema, 39, 152–53, 157, 173n8; characteristics of, 1; success of, 1–2, 171n3 New Left, 172n9 NIMBY-ism, 89, 90, 177n8

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index NL (National Liberation Front), 40, 42, 43 North Korea, 8–9, 45, 60, 99, 111, 112; selfreliance ideology (juche), 42, 174n2. See also Forgotten Warriors (Ich’yŏjin Yŏjŏnsa); Repatriation (Songhwan) Nouvel, Jean, 69 Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, 175n9, 179n3 October Films, 174n4 Oh! Dream Land (O kkum ŭi nara), 46 On-line, 15 Open Cinema, 39–41, 43 Ortner, Sherry, 52, 179n2 Paley, Julia, 17 Panahi, Jafar: The Circle, 149 P’annori Arirang, 40–41 Paquet, Darcy, 2, 79; on chaebŏls, 61, 62; on Ethics Committee, 65–66; on Motion Picture Law, 32; on New Korean Cinema, 157, 171n3 Paramount, 52, 175n2 Park Ch’an-uk: Joint Security Area (Kongdong kyŏngbi kuyŏk JSA), 97, 155 Park Chung-hee, 10, 20, 32, 65, 79, 119–20 Park Geun-hye, 69, 164 Park Ki-hyŏng: on screen quota system, 92; Whispering Corridors (Yŏgo kwedam), 90–91, 92, 99, 177n10 Park Sun-ja, 124–25 PD (People’s Democratic League), 42, 43, 50 peasants, 12, 55, 159–61 personal/private films, 72–74, 76, 168 PIFF. See Pusan International Film Festival Pinney, Christopher: on Indian vs. Western visuality, 26; on mass production of art, 22–23, 25–26, 161 political conditions: anti-communism, 10, 19, 32, 45, 98, 119–20, 178n3; as authoritarian, 3–4, 9–12, 13, 17, 19, 20– 21, 31, 32, 38, 41, 44, 45–46, 47, 65, 67, 79, 93, 96, 100, 119–20, 136, 138, 155–57, 167, 176n6, 178nn15,3; Chosŏn dynasty, 176n6; and Korean reunification, 42, 113; Kwangju Uprising, 10–11, 32–33, 46, 57, 58, 59, 172n8; local elections, 138; and PIFF, 2–7, 66, 155–57; relationship to culture, 2–4, 13–14, 23; United Shilla dynasty, 8, 171n7. See also Japanese colonial rule; Kim Dae-jung; state censorship Pongch’ŏndong, 120

201

postauthoritarianism, 17, 23–24; defined, 13; of Kim Dae-jung’s administration, 12–13, 18–19, 48, 56–60, 67, 68–69, 163; and Korean film sector, 13, 18, 48–49, 53, 55, 67, 68–69, 72, 75, 76, 100, 108, 135–36, 138, 163, 164, 165, 169, 171n3; of Roh Moo-hyun’s administration, 13, 18, 48 Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths, 57 Pribram, E. Deidra, 52 Puchŏn International Film Festival, 16, 56, 66, 149, 150 Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), 56, 125, 133–34; audiences at, 142–50; cash awards at, 137, 154; economic impact, 140–42, 179n2; emergence, 4–5, 137–38, 154–55; and KIFA, 7, 16, 138, 154–55, 158–60; and Kim Dae-jung, 3–4; and modernity, 139; Nampodong, 139; organizers, 146, 147; and Paradise Hotel, 139–40; and political conditions, 2–7, 66, 155–57; politicians and bureaucrats at, 3–4, 5–6, 140; premieres at, 155; programmers at, 146–47, 154–56; staff, 5, 16, 139–40, 146–47, 149–50, 154–55, 156–57, 160; and state censorship, 66, 155–57; Wenders at, 142–44, 146–48; youthful audience at, 144–46, 147 Pusan International Short Film Festival, 73 Pyŏksan, 61 Queer Film Festival, 69–70 Rayns, Tony, 141 Reagan, Ronald, 11 Reed-Danahay, Deborah, 169 re-enchantment/disenchantment, 22–23, 24–25, 161 reflexivity, 40, 43, 75, 168 Repatriation (Songhwan), 30, 110, 115, 118–22, 123 resistance and power, 169, 179n2 Rhee Syngman, 9–10 Robinson, Michael F., 177n9 Rofel, Lisa B., 22 Roh Moo-hyun, 48, 130; and 3–8–6 generation, 13, 14, 18–19, 20, 167 Roh Tae-woo, 11 Rosellini, Roberto: Paisà, 40 rural education movement, 159–60

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index

Samsung, 61; Economic Research Center, 3; Foundation of Culture, 69; ShortFilm Festival, 50–51 Sanggyedong Olympics (Sanggyedong ollimp’ik), 26, 27–28, 36–37 Schensul, Jean J., 16 Schild, Verónica, 17 Scott, A. O., 97 Screen Quota Emergency Committee, 82–83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93, 99, 176n6 screen quota system/movement, 77–79, 80–86, 89–95, 99, 100–106, 107, 172n10, 175n1, 176n7; and cultural nationalism, 23–24, 86, 165–66; and head shaving, 83–84, 85, 93, 100, 175n6; and KIFA, 23–24, 77, 78–79, 82, 83–84, 85–86, 88, 89–90, 93–94, 95, 96, 98, 100–101, 102– 5, 165–66, 178n16; and Kim Dong-won, 85, 94, 103; and Korean film industry, 77, 78, 81, 82, 85, 93, 102, 103–6 Screen Quota Watchers, 81, 82, 83, 90–91, 101, 175n4 Seoul Film Collective, 12, 39, 56, 68; Bluebird, 41; P’annori Arirang, 40–41; That Summer, 41; Theory of Film Activism, 39, 41; Toward a New Cinema, 39–40 Seoul International Queer Film & Video Festival, 174n5 Seoul National University, 39, 59, 125, 127 Seoul Visual Collective, 72; On-line, 15 Seoul Women’s Film Festival, 113, 125 shamanistic rituals, 33, 34, 39, 175n6 shantytown associations, 27, 31, 36–37 Shim, Doobo, 2 Shim Kwang-Hyun, 80–81, 82, 86, 90, 172n10, 176n7 Shin, Chi-Yun, 2, 58, 171n3 Shin, Gi-Wook: on cultural nationalism, 177n9; Ethnic Nationalism in Korea, 172n7; on Kwangju Uprising, 172n8 shinsedae (the new generation), 145, 168 Shiri, 95–99, 101, 104–5, 178n14 Shohat, Ella, 47, 173n7 Shoot the Sun by Lyric, 83, 84 Sight and Sound, 141 Sivaramakrishnan, K., 179n2 Slater, David, 17 Small Cinema, 41, 43 social activism, 84, 135, 167, 169; cooptation of, 21, 24, 167, 168; social movement networks, 7, 18, 21, 28,

85, 90, 93, 135, 137, 154–55, 164, 166; student activists, 2–3, 6–7, 10–11, 12, 12–13, 19, 31, 33, 39, 45–46, 59–60, 74, 98–99, 104, 112–13, 126, 176n6, 178nn3,5. See also film activism; 3–8–6 generation social capital, 18–20, 21, 107, 116, 135–36, 166 social class, 19–20, 48, 172n1; middle class, 7, 14, 21, 29, 120, 133, 137–38, 145, 160, 161– 62, 164, 166–67; peasants, 12, 55, 159–61; social mobility/status, 2, 20, 24, 161–62; urban poor, 27–28, 88, 120–21; working class, 42, 114, 126, 159, 161, 174n2 Sohn, Josie, 164 Solanas, Fernando, 12; La Hora de los Hornos (Hour of the Furnaces), 47; “Toward a Third Cinema”, 41 Song Dong Yun, 80, 92, 96 Song, Jesook, 21–22 Song, Jung A., 82 Sony, 52 Soviet Union, 6, 8–9 Spieberg, Steven, 74 Stam, Robert, 47, 173n7 state censorship, 4, 7, 38, 41, 44, 45–46, 47, 48, 51; and film festivals, 66–67, 155–57; under Japanese colonial rule, 31, 32; and KIFA, 65–67, 155–57, 167; Motion Picture Law, 20, 32, 65; and PIFF, 66, 155–57 Stringer, Julian, 2, 171n3 Sullivan, Nancy, 22 Sundance Film Festival, 30, 123, 174n4 symbolic capital, 90, 107, 165–66; of 3–8–6 generation, 18–20, 21, 84–85, 105, 135–36 Tae June-sik, 159; Days of the Human, 159 Taiwanese independent filmmakers, 28 Teachers Union, 44 Third Cinema, 41, 173n7 Thompson, Kristin, 91–92; Film Art, 174n4 3–8–6 generation, 2–3, 12–14, 98, 110, 169; and film activism, 30, 55, 128; and Kim Dae-jung, 12–13, 14, 18–19, 20, 21, 56–60, 136, 167; moral authority of, 19, 20–21, 56–60, 62–63, 78, 84–85, 93, 105, 106, 135–36, 164, 166, 172n9; and screen quota movement, 23–24, 77, 79, 83–84, 85, 86, 90, 93; symbolic capital of, 18–20, 21, 84–85, 105, 135–36

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index Tokyo International Film Festival, 141 Trier, Lars von, 154 Trotter, Robert T., II, 16 Twentieth Century-Fox, 52, 61 Tyrrell, Heather: on non-Western, commercial film industries, 22, 106 UNESCO, 175n3; General Conference, 101–2 United Artists-MGM, 52, 175n2 United International Pictures (UIP), 79, 90–91, 175n2 United Labor Film Collective*, 54, 63, 67, 71, 86, 117; and Min Sung-mi*, 108–9, 125–36 United Shilla dynasty, 8, 171n7 United States: film distributors in, 90–94; independent films in, 51–52, 174n4; relations with South Korea, 8–9, 10–11, 13, 28, 31, 33, 58, 77, 78, 79, 81–82, 85, 101, 105, 164, 172n10 Universal, 52, 175n2 Uri Film Collective*, 6–7, 15, 159 Uri Madangpae (Community Dance Group), 49–50 Vagabond Cinema Tour, 71 Valenti, Jack, 82 Venice International Film Festival, 155 venture capital, 23, 61–62, 64, 74 Vick, Tom, 171n3 Wacquant, Loïc J. D., 19 Warner Brothers, 52 Wenders, Wim, 154; The American Friend, 179n3; Million Dollar Hotel, 142–44, 146–48; Paris, Texas, 148, 179n4; Q&A session at PIFF, 143–44, 146, 147–48; Wings of Desire, 179n3 Wilk, Richard, 22

203

women filmmakers, 24, 108–36, 109, 136, 166, 168, 169 Won Hee-ryong, 59 Wong Kar-wai, 50 Wood, Chris, 175n3 working class, 42, 114, 126, 159, 161, 174n2. See also labor unions World Trade Organization (WTO), 81 Wyatt, Justin, 52 Yallashyŏng, 39, 127 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, 127, 128 Yang Ki-Hwan, 83, 90–91 Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, 22 Yi Chŏng-ha, 12, 39, 40, 42, 43 Yi Dŏk-haeng, 61 Yi Han-woo, 143 Yi Hye-yŏng: on film activism, 34–35, 36; on primordial filmmaking, 35; on Western cinema, 35 Yi Hyo-in, 12, 39, 42, 43, 50–51 Yi Jae-gu: Open the School Gate (Tach’in kyomunŭ yŏlmyŏ), 44 Yi Jin-pil, 28, 36 Yi Sang-in: Mother, Your Son (Ŏmŏni, Dangshinŭ Adŭl), 43, 44, 45–46, 47, 98, 99, 173n10; on Shiri, 98–99; on student activism, 98–99 Yim Dawnhee, 75 Yŏlin yŏnghwa (“Open Cinema”), 39–41, 43 yŏnch’ul (“art-inducer”), 36, 173n4, 174n3 Yŏnghwa Kongdongchae (Film Community), 49–50 Yŏnghwa Madang Uri (Film Community “Us”), 49–50 Yoo Kil-chon, 67–68 Youth Film Fstival, 67 Yucies, Brian M., 80

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