In Retrospect(ive): 7 questions with Jongsuk Thomas Nam

Above: Kim Ki-young retrospective curator Jongsuk Thomas Nam, who is currently the managing director of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

In 1997, the international film community was abuzz with the discovery of a new auteur who had spent most of his 35-year-long filmmaking career largely ignored by mainstream audiences in South Korea. At 77 years old, director Kim Ki-young saw widespread rekindled interest in his films after the 2nd Busan International Film Festival screened a retrospective of his iconic works, including films like The Housemaid (1960) and Insect Woman (1972) which enthralled Western audiences across the world.

The Korean Cinema Retrospective at BIFF has since been instrumental in shining a light on under-recognised filmmakers, actors or actresses and celebrating South Korea’s rich cinematic film history. This year’s retrospective was on legendary star, Shin Seong-il, who has starred in over 500 films since the 1960s.

We speak to Jongsuk Thomas Nam, who was a curator for the Kim Ki-young retrospective in 1997, to find out his views on the Korean Cinema Retrospective programme past and present. Nam is currently the managing director at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), a genre film festival in South Korea that screens South Korean and international horror, thriller, mystery and fantasy films. He was part of the team that also programmed BIFF’s subsequent retrospectives on cinematographer Yoo Young-kil, directors Yu Hyun-mok and Shin Sang-ok, and also served as the festival coordinator from 1997 to 2004.

Above: This year’s Korean Cinema Retrospective screened eight of actor Shin Seong-il’s films, including Kim Soo-yong’s Mist (1967) and Lee Man-hee's A Day Off (1968).

1. Can you recall your time at the 2nd Busan International Film Festival and the planning behind the Kim Ki-young retrospective? The second year of the festival was still volatile and unsettled. Everyone had to work for their sponsorships, films and projects. So when we did decided to do the Kim Ki-young retrospective, even Kim Ki-young himself wasn't sure if he wanted to do it or not. The Korean Cinema programmer at that time, Lee Yong-gwan, approached Kim Ki-young and persuaded him that a retrospective on him was necessary — one of the reasons he presented was that the Korean film industry back then didn’t really consider the directors of B movies (like Kim Ki-young) to be worthy of consideration when it came to the restoration of old works. BIFF then made a deal with the Korean Film Archive and paid money to restore 8 prints of his works. They also provide English subtitles for those films so these could be introduced to the rest of the world.

2. Kim Ki-young’s low-key career received a huge resurgence after his retrospective was screened. Were you surprised by the positive response from visitors at the festival in 1997? Kim Ki-young had been neglected for so long, and his films were considered as sex movies at that time for adult audiences so we didn’t know what kind of response to expect. But once the festival opened, Korean and international guests grabbed his films. We had such a great response from international audiences that we ended up having a mini-tour of Kim Ki-young films to several cities in the United States — Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Washington DC. He became an instant hit. 8 months after that, Kim Ki-young died.

3. What kind of figures in the film industry does the Korean Cinema Retrospective aim to highlight?

There are many actors and actresses who have not been shown much appreciation. There have been a couple of actresses branded as a bad girl or a femme fatale, so they weren’t able to secure roles for other films. There were others who left the film industry completely, so what BIFF tried to do was make sure these individuals would see the light of day somehow. There was a female actress named Lee Hwa-si, who was one of those actresses labelled as a femme fatale in the 1970s. She didn’t star in many films and eventually she left the Korean film industry, got married and moved to the United States. So only the cinephiles knew who she was, and when BIFF chose to shed a light on her films, I thought that was a great choice because femme fatales then weren’t appreciated but they were the forerunners of the Korean film industry at that time. Now everybody supports feminism.

4. What is your view on this year’s retrospective on Shin Seong-il? Shin Seong-il is not an artistic actor but a commercial actor. He has starred in literally every single film from the 1960s and 70s; he would star in cheap sex movies, artist movies — in anything as long as he got paid. So I don’t know what the merit would be in programming him, because everyone knew who Shin Seong-il is. It’s not a real discovery even though they said they are re-shedding light on his career. The only thing is that Shin Seong-il has 6 months to live — he's got cancer so in my opinion, that played a big part in it. Otherwise, I didn’t think they would programme Shin Seong-il at all. BIFF wants claim as the largest and most influential film festival in Asia. But they have to be real careful about the retrospectives because there are certain expectations that audiences, global companies or organisations expect. If people watch the films they programme and decide that these aren’t worthy of film festivals, then that’s a mistake; that’s a failure as a retrospective. A retrospective means that they are celebrating someone's life work.

5. How would you compare the retrospectives programmed at BIFF to those programmed at BIFAN?

For BIFAN, we would get a break because we are the fantastic film festival, meaning we can play terrible films because it's known to be terrible. We did a retrospective on Ed Wood, but people would appreciate that. Ed Wood is the world's worst filmmaker ever who made films in the 1950s and 60s. We have certain genres, so it’s okay for us. For the Jeonju International Film Festival, they are into micro-budgets, so they will be judged by the independent spirit over the actual film quality. For the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, even if the quality is low, I think the fact that women have made films in the 30s, 40s, 50s alone merits the programming. But BIFF needs to be careful, because they have a certain standard that needs to be met by general audiences.

6. How relevant is BIFF’s Korean Cinema Retrospective programme in contributing to its festival identity in this day and age?

For every other film festival in Korea, the box office figures for retrospectives are always low, unless it’s incredibly sensational. And that’s historically true for majority of the retrospectives at BIFF in recent times. Audiences always pay more attention to contemporary films. BIFF is doing a favour not for themselves, but for the talents and companies they are highlighting for the retrospectives. In my opinion they have nothing to gain (from programming the retrospective) as they already have enough exposure. So what's happening now is that the Korean Film Archive has its own YouTube channel and they showcase classic Korean films with English subtitles already in place. What BIFF was doing last time was work that the Korean Film Archive should have been doing but were not able to, with additional funding and better organisation.

7. What can BIFF do to improve its Korean Cinema Retrospective programme? To further enhance their status, BIFF should be more creative. Rather than doing something about Korean actors or actresses, they can perhaps focus on a certain movement at that time, like independent movements, organisations or even old film production companies. There are many possibilities rather than focusing on just an individual name. Retrospectives will always have a part at film festivals, including BIFF, but it’s no longer a key programme. It has served its role for cinephiles, foreign film programmers and festival directors but if BIFF cannot come up with a person to program then they shouldn’t do it, they should research further.