MMCA FILM AND
VIDEO
The 2014 MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary
Art) Film and Video has opened to the public.
MMCA Film and Video provides a place not
only to experience modern art and films that have already interpenetrated and
blurred the boundaries of each genre, but also to enjoy their entertaining fun as
the most popular arts. Films attract audiences as they create a dramatic
reality and produce the magic of empathy to take the audience deep into a
story. There is, on the other hand, a new type of film. Films of this type
abandon a familiar plot and open up a new window. These films do not offer
dramatic pleasure but search for the very nature of film itself, and this is the beauty
that is not yet explored and that we can discover.
MMCA Film and Video built three theme
sections based on three different criteria, reflecting a variety of expectations that
an audience has for movies.
1. THINKING CINEMA
Robert Bresson said, “An image must be
transformed by contact with other images as is a color by contact with other
colors.” Likewise, there are films that study a phenomenon occurring in its movie frame, aiming at the world of
pure cinematography. There is another type of film, which pursues the cause of a matter in life
and transforms unsolvable irrationality and contradiction into a movie. This
type of film shifts the focus of a memory, allowing us to have time to contemplate as
we are moving through it. “Thinking Cinema” section asks us to consider what a movie is or to search for the essence
of a movie.
2. CINE–MAGIC
The reason that myths, fairy tales and a sci–fi stories share a similar pattern may be related to the
eternal desire of human beings. The old power that all epics have hypnotizes
the audience with its regular pattern and brings them beyond reality. That
power is what makes us remember a movie as the most popular art. “Cine–Magic” section introduces magical movies that
trick audience and make them to forget the passage of time.
3. OPEN CINEMA
“Open Cinema” section suggests a new way of watching and appreciating a movie, breaking from the old
and fixed way. The passage of time that we undergo while watching a movie
becomes a physical object to exhibit. Installed media artwork that has not
drawn attention to its whole may be showing at a theater. “Open Cinema” provides an opportunity to guess the future of the moving image.
MMCA Film and Video, the first
planning of “Thinking
Cinema”
<The Art of
Non Fiction_ DMZ Docs Special Screenings>
The primary topic of “Thinking Cinema” is <The Art of Non Fiction>. The purpose of this section is to get people to think about the way a
documentary film shows things existing in the real world, and matters that happened in the past and are happening
now. In that respect, the 5th DMZ Korean International
Documentary Film Festival last year had a number of movies that are fit to be
discussed in <The Art of Non Fiction>. While being sponsored by the DMZ Korean International
Documentary Film Festival, MMCA Film and Video finally opened <
The Art of Non Fiction_DMZ Docs Special Screenings>.
The films to be shown in this special screenings approach realism in diverse
ways, making us think about the gap
between fact and reality. A fact may be hidden beyond reality and it may be
uncomfortable to disclose the fact. A few brave directors sometimes chase a
covered–up fact in a movie, but the fact is often processed as a truth that someone has hidden. A
truth is subjective and emotional, which sometimes makes a blunt documentary even more fictional than a
fiction is. The captured reality may reveal its fictional nature depending on
the observer’s point of view, and the reality may be disclosed by the observer’s
interpretation. The skills of non–fiction, i.e. the way of speaking, that a documentary possesses seem like walking on a tight, thin rope between reality and fiction in a dangerous but
pleasurable way. “Reconversion (2012)” follows the passage of time
condensed in building structures, and “Leviathan (2012)” obsesses over the imbalanced rhythm
that the raw, bold image in a reality imparts.
“Captivity (2012)” carves an image of lasting silence that carries engraved light and shade, and “Let’s Dance (2013)” reenacts the emotional wounds of
a memory in a fictional way. “Tour of Duty (2012)” does not give up the modest view
of a real person, while “PRISMA (2013)” transforms the image of a space where careless moments continue into an
inner contemplation.
<The Art of Non Fiction_DMZ Docs Special Screenings> encompasses not only documentaries of masters including
Jean–Luc Godard and Ken Loach, but also young directors who now embark on their search. Let’s meet <The Art of Non Fiction>
that offers a rich range of movies from ones that realize the reality to ones that search for the inside of reality.
Screening Schedule Brochure
