CFP:Korean Cinema in a Transnational Context – Chinese-Korean Connections and Beyond

From: Berry, Chris [[email protected]]

Professor Chris Berry
Dept. of Film Studies
King's College London
Strand, London
WC2R 2LS
UK

44-(0)207-848-1158

________________________________
From: Berry, Chris

Korean Cinema in a Transnational Context – Chinese-Korean Connections and Beyond

            When not researched as national cinema, Korean cinema has been most often studied as South Korean cinema's relation to former colonialist and contemporary rival Japan or the big Other of Hollywood. But Korean Cinema in a Transnational Context is multiple and rhizomatic. It is both North and South Korean, and its connections move in many other less-explored directions. In this research programme, we open up a more neglected seam: Korean cinemas, their various Chinese connections, and beyond along the socialist and post-socialist route into the former Soviet Union and the new states that have been born from it.

Organizing committee:

Kim Soyoung (Korean National University of Arts)
Chris Berry (Kings College, London)
Earl Jackson (National Chiao Tung Univ. Co-director of Trans Asia Screen Culture Institute)

Venue: Trans Asia Screen Culture Institute, Seoul, Korea

Dates: Jan 10-12, 2014

Project 1:

“Sino-Korean Film Connections and Beyond: A History in Fragments”

            Chinese-Korean Film Connections have existed since the early days of cinema. However, they are little known and often overlooked. The tumultuous and disjunctive history of the twentieth century has made it impossible to subsume these connections into any linear histories of the development of particular industries. In this transnational framework, we hope to recover these connections and compose them as a genealogical history of fragments, marked by disjuncture. Some of the connections we have in mind include:

·         The exhibition of North Korean films in the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution decade (1966 to 1976)
·         South Korean directors in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 70s, esp. Cheng Chang-ho/Chung Chang-hwa
·         King Hu's use of Korean locations to stand in for ancient China
·         Chinese-Koreans, Yanbian, and Koreans from the former Soviet republics in contemporary Korean cinema
·         K-dramas' popularity in Chinese-speaking territories over the last decade
·         The Korean filmmaking exile community in Shanghai in the 1930s, including leading male star Jin Yan/Kim Yom
·         Bruce Lee as a generative force in Korean action cinema.
·         Hong Kong noir's impact on the formation of Korean noir in the 1990s
·         Koreans working in the Man'ei Studio in Manchukuo in the 1930s
·         Zhao Liang's documentaries on the North Korean-Chinese border
·         The opening of Lou  Ye's Summer Palace on the Tumen/Dooman River
·         Co-productions (historical and recent): Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, South Korean, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union and successor states
·         Man'ei's connection to North Korean film production
·         PRC-North Korea co-productions in th 1950s and 60s
·         Ri Koran/Li Xianglan/Yamaguchi Yoshiko/Shirley Yamaguchi/Okada Yoshiko acting in a film made in Korea, as well as Sayon's Bell (Taiwan) and Eternal Fame (Shanghai)
·         The finding of “lost” Korean films in Chinese film archives and Mosfilm archives
·         The televising foreign films in North Korean, including Chinese films
·         The role of Koreans in Shanghai-Man'ei connections
·         The popularity of South Korean melodrama films in 1960s Taiwan
·         North Korean-Chinese animation co-productions
·         Depictions of the Korean War in PRC films

We seek to build an online archive of fragments and to produce a volume of scholarship on this topic. Are you aware of traces of these and other fragments? Would you like to tell us about them, or to send us PDFs and photographs of material to be shared with other academics? We will build an online archive to house these materials.

Please contact us at: [email protected]

Are you writing on one of these topics? Would you like to give a paper and contribute to an edited volume? We plan to hold a conference on this topic in January 2014, and then edit a book or a special issue of a journal based on the papers. Please send us your title and a 250-word abstract by 30 September to:

[email protected]

Project 2:

“Zhang Lu—Nomad Cinema of China and Korea”

            Born in China of Korean parents, Zhang Lu has made films in Beijing (Tang Poetry); North China (Grain in Ear); Mongolia (Hyazgar, a.k.a.Desert Dream); Iksan (Iri,South Korea); Chongqing; on the Chinese-North Korean border (Dooman River; Ansan and Garipong (Landscape); and Kyongju. Over a decade of nomadic filmmaking, he has established himself as an auteur of minor transnationalism. He himself considers his practice to be “internationalist.” To mark his achievement, we plan a conference in Seoul in early January 2014, followed by either a book or a special issue of a journal. If you are interested in taking part in this project, please send us the proposed title of your paper and a 250-word abstract by 30 September to:

[email protected]

Chris Berry and Kim Soyoung




Professor Chris Berry
Dept. of Film Studies
King's College London
Strand, London
WC2R 2LS
UK

44-(0)207-848-1158

 --

 --