2018.1.5 (Fri) 19:30-21:30 The Day After and 1,2,3,4

2018.1.7 (Sun) 19:30-21:30 Alps and The Acting Tutorial

2018.1.26 (Fri) 19:30-21:30 Dance of Reality

2018.1.27 (Sat) 13:00-19:00 Underground

The Day After

Director: Hong Sang-soo

Screenwriter: Hong Sang-soo

Starring: Kwon Hae-hyo, Kim Minhee, Kim Sae-byeok, Jo Yoon-hee

Duration: 92 min

Genre: Drama/Romance

Country: Korea

Language: Korean

Awards: Nomination for the 70th Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or

Shot in moody black and white, The Day After opens with book publisher Bongwan (Kwon Hae-hyo) fending off his wife’s heated accusations of infidelity. At the office, it’s the first day for his new assistant, Areum (Kim Min-hee), whose predecessor was Bongwan’s lover. Mistaken identity, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and déjà vu figure into the narrative as the film entangles its characters across multiple timelines through an intricate geometry of desire, suspicion, and betrayal. The end result is one of Hong’s most plaintive and philosophical works.

1, 2, 3, 4

Director: Zhou Tao

Screenwriter: Zhou Tao

Duration: 3 min 34 sec

Genre: Video Art

Country: China

Language: Chinese

1, 2, 3, 4 records the morning staff meetings of over fifty shops and companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The film is structured after these companies’ corporate songs (or chants), designed to inject modern, efficiency-driven logic into listeners, making them into optimized members of a collective. By documenting this strange, mechanical dance, the film presents a surreal and humorous take on modern work culture, showing how “performance art” can be found in the most mundane of settings.

Alps

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Screenwriters: Efthymis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring: Stavros Psyllakis, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris

Duration: 93 min

Genre: Drama

Country: Greece, USA, France, Canada

Language: Greek, English

Awards:

Venice Film Festival 2011 Golden Lion (Nominated)

Venice Film Festival 2011 Golden Osella (Best Screenplay)

Alps centers on a group of professional stand-ins—a doctor, a nurse, a gymnast and her coach—who take the place of lost loved ones, ranging from spouses to pets. They dress in the clothes and adopt the habits of the deceased. This dark comedy by Yorgos Lanthimos is the follow up to his 2009 movie Dogtooth. The humor in Alps comes from the most bizarre, unexpected situations. When the line between fiction and reality blurs, how do we know which side we are on?

The Acting Tutorial

Director: Tao Hui

Screenwriter: Tao Hui

Duration: 3 min 34 sec

Genre: Video Art

Country: China

Language: Chinese

The artist sees The Acting Tutorial as a narrative experiment in which thirteen actresses use exaggerated motions to create a strange, zany performance—this time, the students are taught how to cheat other people. As reality and fantasy blend together, the performers take things too far, burning one of their members to death, forcing viewers to ask themselves: is the life we live real, or a performance?

The Dance of Reality

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Screenwriter: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Starring: Pamela Flores, Jeremias Herskovits, Bastián Bodenhöfer, Axel Jodorowsky, Francisco Pizarro Saenz de Urtury, Andres Cox, Felipe Pizarro Sáenz De Urtury, Alisarine Ducolomb

Duration: 130 min

Genre: Biography/Drama/Fantasy

Country: Chile

Language: Spanish

Awards: Cannes Film Festival 2013 SACD Prize (Directors’ Fortnight) (Nominated)

Oslo Films from the South Festival 2013 Award Best Feature

After a 23-year hiatus, The Dance of Reality marks the triumphant return of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the visionary Chilean filmmaker behind cult classics El Topo and The Holy Mountain. In this visceral autobiographical film, a young Jodorowsky is confronted by a collection of compelling characters that contributed to his burgeoning surreal consciousness. The legendary filmmaker was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on the edge of the Chilean desert, where the film was shot. Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology, and poetry, The Dance of Reality reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a dance created by our own imaginations.

Underground (Director's Cut)

Director: Emir Kusturica

Screenwriter: Dusan Kovacevic

Starring: Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic

Duration: 320 min

Genre: Comedy/Drama/War

Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary

Language: Serbian, German, French, English, Russian

Awards: 48^th Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or

Black marketers Marko (Miki Manojlovic) and Blacky (Lazar Ristovski) manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko’s duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslavian Civil War of the 1990s when Marko realizes that the situation is ripe for exploitation.

Fan Xiaoqing (Scholar of Korean Film)

Fan Xiaoqing is a professor of Communication University of China and a consultant for Busan International Film Festival. Her long-term research focuses on the Korean film industry, and she is the translator of Wildlife: Kim Ki Duk.

World Organization of Video Culture Development (VCD)

VCD, founded in Beijing in the summer of 2017, is a non-profit dedicated to making video culture more accessible to the public by creating a platform for screenings, research, and discussion. VCD hosts a range of events including exhibitions of film materials, lectures, and panel discussions. VCD also supports outstanding young video artists by showcasing their works and assisting in production.

Lumen Quarterly

As one of VCD's major programs, Lumen Quarterly offers on-going high-quality film screenings held in conjunction with panel discussions, lectures, and document reviews. The program selects a group of art house films, experimental films, short films, animated films, and video art that reflect the impact of individual agency within cultures. Lumen Quarterly is organized on a seasonal basis. Every three months, one artist or cultural figure is invited to curate the new season of screenings based on a theme they select. Through these film screenings, VCD hopes to act as the catalyst for open conversations and new perspectives, deepening audiences’ understanding of filmmaking.

BARCO