8th Jecheon International Music & Film Festival Preview

Part of MKC's coverage of the Jecheon Intl. Music & Film Festival.

Following last month’s wonderful PiFan I begin August with what will be the first in of a series of film festivals. I made my way to Jecheon, which is a small town about 2 hours East of Seoul, at the crack of dawn to make the most of my brief weekend at the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival.

While it doesn’t rival the prevailing trio of Korean film festivals, namely Busan (BIFF), Jeonju (JIFF) and Bucheon (PiFan), Jecheon, which is in its 8^th edition, has steadily amassed a big profile though it is still not well known outside of the country. As its name suggest, it features a combination of music-related films and performances. Though limited to music, the program is still extremely varied as its scope ranges across a diverse array of musical styles and periods in fiction, biographical, experiemental or documentary films both long and short. 101 films from 27 countries have been programmed this year. This year’s Jury is headed by local filmmaker Chung Ji-young who, following a lengthy interval, made a big comeback this year with the Ahn Sung-kee starring courtroom thriller Unbowed. 

The program is filled with wonderful films, many of them documentaries and all music-related. With only two days I’m very limited in my choices and sadly once I picked up my press pass there were a few of those that no longer had any tickets available but nonetheless I am quite happy with the screenings I was able to book. If all goes to plan I should be seeing 8 films over the weekend, about half of which will be documentaries. Though there are many Korean films on the program I wasn’t able to get tickets for any. Were there more time I would dip into the press library but sadly it seems as though I will be missing out on the local fare at this particular fest.

Very excited to get stuck into the program this weekend and you can look forward to reviews for everything I get a chance to see!

Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet (USA, 2012)
The Last Elvis (El Ultimo Elvis, Argentina) 2012
Tropicalia (Brazil) 2012
Morente (Morente, flamenco y Picasso, Spain) 2011
The Moon (Pumpuang, Thailand) 2011
Gainsbourg By Gainsbourg: An Intimate Self-Portrait (Je suis venu vous dire..., France) 2012
Abba (阿爸, Taiwan) 2011
Punk's Not Dead (Pankot ne e mrtov, Macedonia) 2011
Wrap-up

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