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MoMA to Screen Korean Colonial-Era Films

New York's Museum of Modern Art will present an exhibition of some of the earliest known Korean films, made during the 1930's and 40's, during the Japanese Occupation. The seven films to be screened were rediscovered in 2003 and 2004 at the Chinese Film Archive and restored in new 35mm prints by the Korean Film Archive.

This is the first time these carefully restored prints will be shown outside of Korea. They present a rare visual record and narrative resource to this little-known period. The exhibition titled "Korean Films Made During the Japanese Occupation" will be shown at MoMA from January 28 through February 1, 2009.

Films included in the event are "Sweet Dream" (1936)—the earliest known Korean "talkie" which was recently recognized as a Korean national cultural property— "Spring of Korean Peninsula" (1941), "Angels on the Street" (1941) and "Straits of Chosun" (1943).

Yuni Cho of The Korea Society, New York, co-organized the event with MoMA. Commenting on the upcoming program, she said, "The dramatic content of the films is shaped by the censorship of their era, and several are uncomfortably pro-Japanese. Yet simultaneously, their rich aesthetics and formal experimentation reach beyond imperial Japanese ideology to express transcendent themes of longing, loss, and duty".

MoMA has shown several series on the work of Korean filmmakers, including recent exhibitions such as Im Kwon-taek: Master Korean Filmmaker (2004) and Kim Ki-duk (2008).

Nigel D'Sa

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