The London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) wrapped its 19th edition on Wednesday with a screening of E.oni’s bold coming-of-age drama Love in the Big City, which stars Kim Go-eun (Exhuma) and Noh Sang-hyun (Pachinko).
Run by the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK), this year’s festival drew over 3,300 attendees and also marked a historic collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI), with several screenings taking place at the BFI’s Southbank Theatre.
The KCCUK will also host a special preview and UK premiere of Squid Game Season 2 on December 16 at the BFI’s theater, ahead of the series’ worldwide premiere on December 26 on Netflix.
The BFI is also running a series until December 31 in collaboration with the KCCUK and Korean Film Archives called “Echoes in Time,” featuring 30 Korean films produced during the Golden Age of the 1960s and the New Korean Cinema era.
Eunji Lee, KCC’s head of film and the festival’s programmer, told Deadline that the festival was able to secure the same amount of funding from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) this year as compared to previous editions.
“The money we got didn’t change but domestic festivals like Busan have seen budget cuts. This affects the industry a lot, although international projects are still being supported. As the KCC, we are also always trying to secure other sponsors,” said Lee.
Lee has programmed the LKFF for the past five years and has seen an enormous surge in interest since the global popularity of Korean titles like Parasite and Squid Game.
“Because of OTT services like Netflix, our audiences now have already watched a lot of Korean titles and they’re kind of experts too,” said Lee. “It’s become more tricky to program, because our audiences already know a lot of Korean films, so we’re focused on trying to secure more UK premieres and bring guests over.”
She added that her team focuses on programming more documentaries to expose the UK audience to a more diverse slate of Korean titles.
Additionally, she has made a big push to showcase work by female filmmakers. Lee pointed out a Korean Film Council report published this year highlighting that out of 35 high-budget Korean commercial films released last year, only one was directed by a woman, Yim Soon-rye, who helmed The Point Men. (High-budget productions refer to productions costing over 3 billion Korean won, which is approximately US$2.13M.)
“After Parasite and Squid Game came out, we got a lot of questions from people about who’s going to be the next big Korean film director, so in our programming, we are trying to highlight women’s voices as part of this interest,” said Lee.
LKFF screened 11 films in its “Women’s Voices” section this year and also organized a “Women’s Voices Forum.” The latter featured a discussion with It’s Okay! and FAQ directors Kim Hye-young and Kim Da-min.