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Resfest 2006

(ARTICLE SUMMARY: Resfest 2006, an international festival of experimental videos, comes to Seoul form December 6th to 10th. The venue is Yonsei Centennial Hall. It is the 10th anniversary of Resfest, and the seventh time it has come to Seoul. The festival�s highlights are a showcase of visual works from Radiohead, and a Wu-Tang Clan documentary which closes the festival. Other details of this year�s Resfest are also given.)

From Wednesday December 6th to Sunday December 10th, Resfest's 2006 global tour stops in Seoul. During its 10 years of existence, Resfest has been responsible for bringing some of the best in experimental film and animation around the world. Its tour now spans six continents. This will be the seventh time that the traveling showcase has come to Seoul. Once again, the venue will be the Yonsei Centennial Hall.

Resfest has become more famous than Res magazine itself, from where it took its roots. The magazine originally devoted itself to film made by digital means, which was still uncommon in the mid-1990s. Today in Hollywood, digital is normal. Thus, Res and Resfest have adapted to become a home for experimental film and other related arts. Technology remains central; however, the best films at Resfest are not just slaves of the newest technology, many of them explore questions of motion and technology that have intrigued filmmakers for a 100 years.

This year's Resfest opens with a visual showcase of Radiohead works. Radiohead, one of the biggest bands in the world today, arguably owes a great part of its musical success to the way that it deftly controlled its image. The band has long teamed up with some of England's greatest design and film talents to make their videos and short films. In 2000, to promote their Kid A album, Radiohead teamed up with Shynola to make several short audiovisual pieces for the internet called "blips." These clips, less than a minute long, helped spread the Radiohead buzz across the Internet.

This year's festival closes with Rock the Bells, a road documentary about an attempt to bring all nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan on stage at once. The New York hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan peaked in the mid to late 90s, achieving a crossover success that few hip-hop groups before or after have achieved. The Wu were famous for their unusual approach to the music business, arranging their contracts so that any of their members were free to sign solo recording contracts away from the main group. Thus, almost all nine members became stars independent of one another and their label. As their stars rose, it became more and more infrequent for them to appear together, hence the raison d�etre of Rock the Bells. It was filmed months before the passing of their wildest member, Ol' Dirty Bastard. In this film, it is Ol' Dirty himself who provides all the last-minute drama.

The bread-and-butter of Resfest is not feature-length films, nor is it short narrative-based pieces. Through the festival�s five days, an array of programs are scheduled. Each one tends to be two hours in length and feature a collection of films ranging from 3 minutes to 10 minutes in length. On the schedule are showcases of domestic Korean pieces, selections from Tokyo Resfest, compilations of the best of Resfest marking its 10-year anniversary, selection of cool rock videos and electronic music videos, amongst other things.

There is also a seminar on Friday afternoon devoted to computer graphic effects for cinema. The visual secrets of King Kong and the recent Korean blockbuster the Host will be revealed. This seminar will primarily be conducted in Korean.

The stars of past Resfests are directors like Michel Gondry, Spike Jones, Jonathan Glazer, Mike Mills, Chris Cunningham, and others. It is more than likely that you have not heard of any of them, but you have surely seen some of their works. From France, Michel Gondry is regarded by many as one of the greatest visual geniuses of these times. He began his career directing videos for artists like Bjork. More recently, he directed Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Spike Jones was famous for his skateboarding videos and work with the Beastie Boys, before going on to make movies like Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. Jonathan Glazer is the king of commercials, producing 30-second masterpieces for Guiness, Levis, and Sony.

The video and film industry is about to be transformed by new technologies, just as the music industry was completely turned inside out by MP3 players and online distribution of music. Recent products like Apple�s iPod, Microsoft�s Zune, and Sony�s PSP are all capable of playing video. It seems that the typical user still does not even know how to get video into their player. Beyond knowing how to get video into their player, content is a conundrum. Resfest shows that there are other things out there to watch besides TV reruns, full-length features, and low-brow viral videos. Resfest will give you the chance to deepen your visual imagination. I would suggest bringing a notebook to Resfest, and filling its pages with the names of great directors and short films to look out for.

(For more information, visit www.resfest.co.kr -- there is an English component on the website. Tickets should be reserved at least one day in advance by Ticketlink. Alternatively, tickets can be bought onsite during the festival.)