By Vivienne Chow
After being blacklisted by the government of disgraced former President Park Geun-hye, award-winning South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-kyong said he has resubmitted his rejected proposal for a horror film project now that a new government has come on board.
“It was rejected by the film council last year because of the blacklist. After the new government took office I submitted the same proposal to the [Korean Film Council], so I’m waiting for the results now,” Park told Variety.
Park, winner of the 2011 Golden Bear for short film at the Berlin Film Festival with “Night Fishing,” which he co-directed with brother Park Chan-wook (“The Handmaiden”), was among about 9,000 artists and filmmakers whom the former South Korean government reportedly blacklisted for being unsupportive of its agenda.
The director said his film project was a fictional horror story about a ghost world in the mountains. But he said that the proposal did not receive a hearing from the Korean Film Council.
“They didn’t even put [my project] on the table. The selection jury didn’t even talk about my film,” Park said. “I didn’t know about [the blacklist] until I was told there was a big picture of me in the news, that I was among the artists excluded from government support.”
He said that the previous government – led by former President Park, who is now on trial for corruption – was driven by “great fear. They thought we were too leftist and dangerous.”...
