Close Up

4 November 2017: Non Fiction Diary

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As part of the LKFF Indie Firepower strand, Tony Rayns presents a focus on artist and essay-filmmaker Jung Yoon-suk, whose films have focussed on Korean social and political life. The Home of Stars is a sardonic cage of modern Korean history and Non Fiction Diary deals with Korea’s first serial murder case in the 1990s.

Non Fiction Diary
Jung Yoon-suk
2013 | 93 min | Colour & B/W | DCP
Introduced by Tony Rayns + Q&A with the director

Jung Yoon-suk’s brilliant essay-doc uses real-life crimes from the not-so-distant past as the touchstone for a broader interrogation of the Korean body politic. The so-called Jijon Gang were young men in Yeonggwang, a rural backwater with Confucian roots, who killed five people in 1994 – just after Korea’s transition from military to civilian government. They claimed to hate the new consumerism and the rich, but none of their victims were in fact affluent. Exploring the gang’s misogyny, Jung re-examines other disasters of the period – the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge over the Han River and the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store – asking provocative questions about negligence and culpability, "freedom" and social control.

The White House in My Country
Jung Yoon-suk
2006 | 23 min | Colour | DigiBeta
Introduced by Tony Rayns + Q&A with the director

The American presence in South Korea dates from the Korean War, but why do so many businesses – especially bars and nightclubs – still have names like "White House" and "Washington"? Studying at the Korean National University of the Arts, Jung took his camera out onto the streets to find out. 

Hochiminh
Jung Yoon-suk
2007 | 5 min | Colour | Digital
Introduced by Tony Rayns + Q&A with the director

Made at the Korean National University of Arts, Hochiminh is less a celebration of Vietnam’s revolutionary leader than a tribute to the gravel-voiced veteran rocker Han Daesu. Some of the dynamic visual strategies here look forward to ideas that Jung would take further in Bamseom Pirates

The Home of Stars
Jung Yoon-suk
2010 | 13 min | Colour | Digital
Introduced by Tony Rayns + Q&A with the director

Jung created this knockout collage as an installation in the former Kimusa (Korean CIA) building in Seoul, and this is the film version. It explores the modern history of Korea, from politics to pop culture, from war to uneasy peace, with such intensity and wit that it’ll leave you gasping.