Korean Job Discussion Forums

[time for adventure]

Hey
Wondering if ayone can give some info on the upcoming festival this w/e. I have never been to Jeonju so wondering if there is much to do there.

I am off until Wed so can anyone offer some suggestions of things to do and places to go in that area. I don't mind if I have to venture a little further.

Thanks to all who reply!

[ilovebdt]

http://eng.jiff.or.kr/main/index.php

There ya go!

Ilovebdt

[Unreal]

Last year there were about 4 other festivals the same weekend as the Jeonju Film Festival. There was the Sori Arts Festival (lots of music and dance to see), the Pungnamun?? citizen's festival (they celebrate at the old city gate and make a massive pot of bibimbap to feed hundreds of people), a paper festival and I think a pansori (traditional singing) festival. A lot of stuff happens at the Hannok village (traditional village) even if there are no festivals (such as traditional alcohol and paper making and woodworking), which is close to the old city gate and an old government center called Gyeongijeong.

[mount real]

If you're into ���� and �Ȼȱ�, there's this great tiny place next to Primus cinema right in the heart of the film festival. You can see the vats cookin' on the outside and a tiny entrance.....totally worth it!!

[Tiger Beer]

[mount real]

I lived there last year. For hotels, you should be fine...worst case you can check out around the bus station...normal love motel prices apply.

Another great food tip for Jeonju: check out Sam Baek Jjip (�����) downtown near the film festival--awesome kkong-na-mool-guk-bap and side dishes!

[time for adventure]

Thanks for all of the info!!! Looking forward to the festival this weekend.

[VanIslander]

Well, we are here at the Jeonju Film Festival and were able on the opening Friday afternoon to snap up tickets to every showing one's heart desired, nine in all this weekend for this film buff and his entourage.

Viva Cuba (2005), by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, a Cannes award winner, is one of those rare films about children yet for everyone. No condescending cheek-tugging cutie pie moments. No adult-rated grim tale. Instead it's a straightforward story of a girl wanting to stay in her country despite her mom's desire to marry an overseas foreigner, and of a childhood boy friend who goes on the road with her to find her biological father. Funny, immediate, full of little moments yet with a fast-paced plot like an Iranian film I recall of a decade or so ago, and like few others with children as lead characters. The secondary plot concerns the two mothers, worried sick about their loved ones and distrusting each other, showing tensions between christian and communist families. The director went on stage after Friday's opening showing and responded to some unsuccessfully-pretentious Montrealer's question about the smattering of magical realism. (Duh, man, he thinks in Spanish.) Malberti responded by saying he still believes in fairy tales. The director pandered to the Korean audience by speaking of how glad he was to make the film because it enabled him to travel to Korea (no mention of Cannes) and how he hopes more Cuban films are shown in Korea as Korean films are shown in Cuba (yes, said as if to imply Korean films are already being shown more in Cuba - doubtful). The patronizing babble actually produced smiles, which shouldn't be surprising. He talks like a raw Tarentino before he laid on the cool but he directs like a Sam Sheppard, into details between people and quick transistions between scenes.

Well worth seeing, despite its G rating. It's being shown twice more during the festival, at two Monday and next Friday.

[Tiger Beer]

Is it recommended to pre-purchase tickets.. or if are there can u pretty much get in anyone without much problem?

[VanIslander]

Listen up my worst enemy: go to see Not Exactly the Life I Dreamed Of (2005). Everybody else, stay away from its showing tomorrow and coming Thursday. I love French films but this was at its worst: three ugly fat fiftysomethings doing nothing much for over an hour, a camera stationary as a guy spends several minutes polishing silver, tidying up, other inane stuff. It was torture to sit through and I love slow dramas! Cut out half the film and make a short of it and it'd be passable. But perhaps the director wanted to strike home the drudgery of daily life even for a philandering husband who steals very fleeting moments of ecstasy (no sex scenes, but a few rare giggling moments) in an otherwise boring life of moving things around. The one good scene I take away is when the husband goes into the bedroom, calling his wife in, she jumps on the bed and starts to kiss him and he pulls away to give her the money allowance/expenses for the week. Prostituting his wife to be his wife in name only, devoid of emotional attachment. Then he goes back into the main part of the house and does the exact same thing, giving money to the old housekeeper in the same manner. Enough of this flick. Even my worst enemy: Stay away!

The torture continued the next morning with a Thai film, Stories from the North (2005) that was threadbare in terms of plot, to the point of having no point. Several minutes of a guy pushing his way through ubiquitous stalks of some plant, lugging a boy on his back. It was interesting for the first minute, maybe two to give effect, but the next few minutes were hard to sit through and the audience got restless, as did I. Finally he reached the road and the "story" ended. No dialogue, except one complaint from the boy and the occasional half whine. Drudgery. We got it. There are nine "stories" in all. I was amazed at how northern Thailand can look so lacking in color and beauty. The filmmaker wanted to show farming life at its most pedestrian I guess. It was a documentary so parts of the film were worthwhile seeing. The "story" about two old women sitting outside their farmhouses talking about how life is boring there was ironically the most interesting. At least there was some dialogue. The film was shot on Beta SP and looked like a second-rate television local access channel show - which is fine. The biggest problem with the film was the lack of insight: stand in a farm in northern Thailand for a few hours and you'd get the same impressions. There is that little going on in the film, perhaps even less!

World Shorts 3: Labours - Past & Present 2 was worth the trip to Jeonju! especially the phenomenal Workingman's Death (2005) a doc by the Austrian Michael Glawogger showing all the details of life inside the dangerous narrow ex-Soviet coal mine veins, camera right up close, with lots of reflections by the miners on their life; Indonesians carrying 70 kg shoulder baskets of sulphur down from the steaming mountains, their thinking, the details of their daily lives, visually stunning and informative; an outside market in Nigeria where a guy slaughters goats and oxen, others cut parts off, others cook/burn over tire fires burning thick smoke - looks like a battlefield with blood and smoke and lots of yelling, yet there's an order, as guys shout out their sales of skin, organs and heads, the headcutter going around doing his business and occasionally talking about his job and his life. Riveting visuals, disgusting, off kiter, looking like another planet, making one think this is some movie set and not thwe real documentary that it is; a salvage yard for huge ships in Pakistan, manned by the men of a particular village from far away who spend a year working together, some dying, dismantling the largest ships on a beach in order to support their families and go back to visit them once a year for a few weeks. Each of the segments of this film have jaw-dropping visuals, so awesome to see that it's like watching IMAX. Couldn't be more amazingly portrayed than it is. A gem of a documentary. See it! It's on again Wednesday at 2 pm. For 5000 won! They reserve some seating for the day of the show, so those who go early get them I hear from others who've done this, as apparently many Koreans wait until the last minute to buy tickets (surprise, surprise).

Smiling in a War Zone - The Art of Flying to Kabul (2005) was very good! and is on again Tuesday at 5 pm and Thursday at 11 am. The doc is everything it's billed to be: One Danish woman's quest to free the skies from post-9/11 military control and fly her plane to Afghanistan to give a teenage girl a flight after reading of the youngster's wish to become a fighter pilot. A solid B+ for it. Not the reason to come to the festival but a big benefit, esp. the camera work on her stops in Iran.

Live and Become (2005) is a first-rate motion picture that should be run in theaters and available on DVD. A drama about one Christian boy's exodus from the misery of African refugee camps disguised as an Ethiopian jew so as to get to Israel. The story is about his trying to deal with his new life, missing the mother who forced him to flee, and interpreting her command to "live and become". The film has great acting, is entertaining, dramatic, funny! It should be an Oscar nominee. It's been shown twice this last weekend, and its third, last showing is tomorrow, Tuesday, at 8 pm.

So, the festival was a success for me. Three great movies and several good documentaries and shorts. And only two stinkers.

Great selection: over 30 films a day to choose from! Staff is super helpful, will walk blocks out of their way to be helpful, functional English speakers come out of the woodwork to help the waygooks. Easy.

Films are 5000 won each, or if you want: five for 20,000 won. Most cinemas are within two blocks of each other, except for one at a campus a free shuttle bus or 2,600 won cab away. Love motels are 30,000 won. Bus fare for three-hour trip to Jeonju was 9000 won. It was a pretty cheap weekend.

All in all, it was better than the PIFF in Busan last fall. I was impressed.
(But it's no Toronto or Montreal film festival, though it's comparable to Vancouver's, imo)

[VanIslander]

[fiveeagles]

I know of a great motel, right next to Lotte department store. It's across the river and the entrance has rubber strips as a gateway. The rubber strips slow the cars down. Keep them from entering the highway too fast and causing an accident.

It's 30,000 won. Cheap, clean and nice. Probably about 10 mins from downtown.