![]() The reason I make films that are all different from one another lies deep in my personal character: it's just a reflection of my personality. Where do you usually take your inspiration for their different styles? In my work I always tried very hard to overcome that difficult situation, and that's one of the reasons why I got used to making movies with different styles.Īnd, in fact, all of your films look quite different one from another. Their control over expression through cinema was very severe, and the change in our political reality was the real factor that prompted me to try new things. More than the international recognition and prestige, what I really needed to change the course of my career as a filmmaker was the radical change that Korean cinema passed through when the military government came to an end. Was this international acclaim a factor that changed your approach to cinema, pushing you to make even braver films? When you started making films was it your intention to change something in Korean cinema, to speak out in your own voice or were you just willing to find a job and integrate into the industry?īetween the late 80s and early 90s you were one of the very first Korean directors to capture international recognition. At the time, audiences were not so keen on seeing Korean movies and the political censorship was quite strict, so almost everybody in the Korean moviemaking industry could only afford to make melodramas. When I first decided to become a director, everybody just told me to go into the movie business and work. ![]() When I started making movies the situation was quite different from the present. What was the situation of Korean cinema when you started in the 80s? ![]() Afterwards, I decided to go straight into the work of moviemaking and I started my career as an assistant director. In 1980 I just decided to make a film, but there was some political incident and I ended up in jail. Anyway, I have never actually studied cinema, but when I was at the university I acted in some theatre productions, and wrote my own plays as well. ![]() Well, it was quite a long time ago, so it's a bit hard to recall. How did you come to make movies? Did you study at a film school? I would like to start from the very beginning. We met him at the 33rd International Film Festival Rotterdam, where he was member of the official jury, and talked with him about his career and Little Match Girl. The ravaging flop of the film at the box office put Jang once again at the centre of polemics. His latest, long-in-the-works feature Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) was also his most expensive and one of the most expensive Korean films ever. The latter, based on a novel that was accused of being pornographic and which had gotten its author imprisoned, was the first Korean film to compete at the Venice film festival in thirteen years, and found wide distribution in many European countries. In 1994, Hwaomkyung was awarded the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1996, the International Film Festival Rotterdam chose Jang as one of its Filmmakers in Focus.Ī couple of his subsequent features, Timeless, Bottomless, Bad Movie (1998) and Lies (1999) stirred up great controversy and had serious problems with censorship. In the early 90s his films began to acquire international recognition, thus contributing to the detection of the first signs of a renewal in Korean cinema. Since his debut feature, Seoul Jesus (1986), co-directed with Wan Son-u, his works have always displayed an incessant need to find and explore new resources in the language of cinema, and have often questioned audiences about controversial issues in Korean society. 1952) is undoubtedly one of the most relevant and distinctive voices in contemporary Korean cinema.
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