Films from PIFF

I think last year I posted a bit about the Pusan International Film Festival, so I thought I'd take a moment to write to you today about this year's offerings. I attended 13 movies this year (couldn't top my number from 2009). Some of the highlights were seeing a Korean actress who used to be very famous, an old Spanish film by director Carlos Saura, one international short film competition, a great South African film on the outdoor screen, and downloading some flicks I didn't get to see during the festival!

Kim Ji-mi (김지미)

Kim Ji-mi (Jimi Kim)
Born in 1940 in Daejeon, South Korea as Kim Myung-ja, this amazing woman acted in romance, drama, and even a few comedy movies from 1957 to 1992!! That's 35 years for all you math majors out there! I saw two of her films featured at PIFF this year. (I've read she starred in ~330 films and appeared in over 700 during her career!)
HanCinema's article on Kim Ji-mi at 2010 PIFF

Kim Ji-mi, circa 1975

The First Stone (couldn't find a website)

This was an interesting Iranian film about a man in a small village who decides to unconventionally buy a gravestone for himself. He goes into the city and spends a month's wages on an extravagant huge headstone which is then idolized by his fellow villagers, his children, and eventually his wife. Other families begin to follow suit and some even copy the inscription on the hero's original stone. This movie offers a very different view about life, death, and what's important while we're all here on this earth.

The Bang Bang Club

The Bang Bang Club

A great South Africa-Canadian project which tells the story of the true-life Bang bang photographers, young men who rush into intense conflict in civil-war-stricken S.A. to document the horrors. Starring Ryan Phillippe and Malin Akerman, it involves a little love story, a little politics, a good bit of action, and a lot of heart. Plus it's a beautifully shot film.

How I Ended This Summer
This one I had to download since I couldn't get a ticket. It came highly recommended, and in the end, I liked it. It's a Russian film set on a polar island with lots of technical stuff going on. Stick through this somewhat slow, quiet film to be rewarded with a great story about the relastionship between two isolated men who rely on each other in different ways. Not just another nearly homoerotic bromance~ this one gives a heartfelt perspective on dealing with loss and loneliness. Worth a watch.

Short Film Showcase 2
The best film from this lineup was a Philippine short called "P" which featured characters with P-names, lots of p-words, and those words' definitions containing many p-words. It was actually laugh-out-loud funny! Another from Taiwan, called A Mind of My Own, was about a young girl who has long been in a coma when her spirit leaves her body and meets with the other coma patients' spirits. It really wasn't as hokey as that sounds... really. I was even a little teary by the end. It was sweet.



Others I wanted to see, but couldn't get a ticket to:

All About Love, Raavan (aka Raavanan), Late Autumn (2010 remake), Rolling Home with a Bull, Kites, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Ordinary Days, and Kabuki-za: Final Curtain. Look them up :)

PIFF 2010 English website

At work

Oh, wow, where have the days gone?! I'm now at work, with about an hour to spare before I head home on a Thursday afternoon. I like Thursdays. I finish teaching at 12:10, eat lunch, then I'm free to prepare all the things I'll need for upcoming lessons. Today, I've been extra-specially productive. I made a worksheet for a song I'll teach next week, a PowerPoint for my game tomorrow, word cards for the next lesson in 4th grade, uploaded a TON of photos, texted a few friends, arranged my trip to Daegu this weekend, emailed my recruiter about a 6-month job, double-checked the post office's hours (so I can send my sissy a box), and written to you! All of this while watching the shows I miss from the US. I've been downloading a lot, like Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Project Runway, Weeds (♥), Modern Family, Dexter, Arrested Development, Six Feet Under, Big Love, Mad Men... I've really gotten into a LOT of new shows lately! Comedy, drama, reality... fact is, it's all WAAAY better than what's on the tele here. I'm so tired of CSI.

The photos I uploaded were loooooong overdue, even longer than this message! I took over 300 photos at the World Firefighter Games in Daegu. After critique, I chopped it down to ~230. I know ~ it's a lot to take in, but it really was an amazing 3 days! If you take a little peek at my recent Korea set on Flickr, you can see the collection at a glance.



I'm so glad it's Thursday with half an hour to go, and I'm REALLY glad tomorrow's Friday with a great Daegu weekend ahead. This evening I'm off to the post office, the bank, then a university to volunteer for English group. Tomorrow evening I'll be at the beach in Busan for the Fireworks Festival, then north on the train late Saturday morning. Be back with you soon!

Fall??

I just wanted to let you all know that today was the start of the Korean Thanksgiving holiday, Chuseok. This 3-day holiday sometimes falls over a weekend, thus allowing school children and people such as myself only 1 or 2 days off, but this year it has really worked in our favor. September 21st-23rd being the awkward Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday that it is has prompted universities to allow a full week vacation. Also, many public schools are either offering the Monday or Friday off to make a nice round 6 days free! I myself worked yesterday and have now begun my loooong weekend. I plan to spend a couple days in Daegu with friends, then the weekend will be in Seoul to shop, dine, drink, and visit some more!^^

This is why I have train tickets

Also in this short note, a weather update. It has been a strange few seasons here. I'm even more convinced than before that the world is ending. First off, the winter brought the first snow Busan had seen in 3 or 4 years, Seoul got a TON of snow, then after a warm stretch it even snowed in April!! Spring was the rainiest non-rainy season on record and remarkably hot. Summer was actually not as hot and much drier than everyone expected.

Now here we are, September 21st. Most would say this should be fall.

It's currently 81 F, feels like 84 with a humidity of 73%! At 11:45PM!! We hit a high today of 88, feels like 95. The forecast for tomorrow says it will be a bit cooler. Thank heaven for that.

IKEA store releases 100 cats, just to see what would happen.

This one speaks for itself.

The Summer Activities

Now that I have a moment to write, I'll catch you up on the summer activities which kept me busy.

Haeundae Beach - Peak season, from the sanity of an A/C coffee shop!

In June, I was teaching my school's summer camp and spending most afternoons at the beaches in my area. 20 minutes south from my house by bus is Haeundae Beach, the most well-known and most visited beach in the country. I only went a couple times - it gets a bit overwhelming. The peak vacation period is July & Aug, so during June it was still bearable.

Im-rang Beach in the country north of Busan

There's also Song-jeong Beach only 15 bus minutes, Il-gwang is close enough for a bike ride, and then Im-rang just a 10 minute bus north of me. These are all much quieter, family oriented lovely little beaches. Trade the Starbucks for a ma & pop kimbap shop and bring your own mat to lay on!


Then July brought another summer camp for the county area I live in. This one brings in teachers from the Toronto area to lead the classrooms in Western-style ESL learning, as opposed to their usual EFL learning in their native country. Over 3 weeks of 3.5-hour morning classes, the students formed a close bond with us and we saw great improvement in their English usage skills. Throughout the course, they learned about Canadian culture and history, read, wrote, played new games, and even learned songs which were performed at the closing. On the last day all our kids threw a party for my co-teacher Jason and I, complete with cake, silly string, shrimp crackers, and a bunch of lovely gifts & notes.

August brought a lot of music, the Busan Rock Festival, Smashing Pumpkins, one of my fav Busan bands Poko Lambro, and salsa dancing on the beach. The Rock Fest was held at Dadaepo Beach and was my first visit to that southern area of Busan. I got to enjoy some great lesser-known Korean rock bands in an exciting, high energy atmosphere, with one of my best friends in Korea. Then my buddies from Daegu and I headed to Seoul to see the Smashing Pumpkins, who I've been listening to for over a decade. The band's members have changed over the years (with only Billy Corgan remaining out of the original members), but they still rocked the house down.