''Festival'' ( 축제 - ''Chukje'') is a 1996 South Korean drama film directed by

Im Kwon-taek Im Kwon-taek (born December 8, 1934) is one of South Korea's most renowned film directors. In an active and prolific career, his films have won many domestic and international film festival awards as well as considerable box-office success, and h ...

, and based on the novel of the same title by Lee Cheong-jun.

Synopsis

A famous writer, Lee Joon-seop, returns to his hometown to attend his mother's funeral. Lee's illegitimate niece, who has been ostracized from the family, has also returned home for the funeral. While the funeral ceremonies take place, various old family conflicts reassert themselves. During the action of the story, a parallel children's story written by Lee is read by the illegitimate niece. The story describes a grandmother who gives her life force to her growing granddaughter, resulting in the grandmother becoming gradually younger until she reverts into an infant and finally leaves for the next world.

Director's statement

"In a sense, the life we enjoy now is the result of how our ancestors have lived. The recedinggenerations are bound to leave their legacy to the following generations-parents to their children, teachers to their students, and seniors to their juniors. Even a person who seems to lead an independent life by and of himself is strongly influenced by his ancestors. I see the entire process as tremendously beautiful and sincerely dream to show the viewers of my movie the true sense of this ongoing phenomenon.
A funeral serves as the starting point for this movie. The funeral is for a warm-hearted eighty-seven-year-old lady who had strived to help those in need throughout her life.
Through the motif of the funeral, the most extensively scaled ceremony in life, I have tried to explore the meaning of death and its effects shadowing the bereaved. I have also tried to bring to light the sentiments of the survivors: their sorrow, egoism, solemnity and even frivolity. I want to give the viewers who see this film a moment to think about what is truly valuable and precious in our quickly changing world. At this moment, I consider this goal my duty as a director.."
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Reception

During the 2000

Inter-Korean summit Inter-Korean summits are meetings between the leaders of North and South Korea. To date, there have been five such meetings so far (2000, 2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first ...

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

n leader, Kim Jong-il specifically mentioned ''Festival'' along with

's earlier '' Chunhyang'' (

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

) as models of the type of cinematic works on which the two Koreas could work together.

Awards

* Best Film, Blue Dragon Film Awards

Availability

''Festival'' was released on Region 3

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

in South Korea with English subtitles, but as of October 2007 is currently out of print. It is available for viewing on the Korean Film Archive's YouTube page with English subtitles.

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * Kim, Ji-seok. "On screen", ''Cinemaya'' #33, July 1996, p. 40-41. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Festival (1996 Film) 1996 films 1996 drama films South Korean drama films Films based on Korean novels Films directed by Im Kwon-taek Best Picture Blue Dragon Film Award winners 1990s Korean-language films