Starting on Thursday, September 2nd and continuing until next Friday, September 10th is the 4th Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul. The festival began in 2007 with a strong focus on cinema’s past, showcasing large retrospectives on various directors and movements in film history. Last year, however, marked a change in direction, with more current films being shown. This year’s festival continues in that direction, with the large majority of films being contemporary and very little in the way of retrospectives. It has now become more like most festivals, a smaller version of Busan but with far less prestigious or well-known filmmakers. There are benefits to this, of course, giving audiences access to films that are not only unavailable in theatres but also unlikely to make DVD as well. However, as a cinephile, I must say I miss the original festival format. That said, there are some films I’m looking forward to this year. Here is a brief preview.

Michael Powell’s 1948 masterpiece THE RED SHOES should be at the top of everyone’s list. While I haven’t yet confirmed that this is the recently restored version, I would be very surprised if it wasn’t. THE RED SHOES is one of key Techicolor works in cinema history, and getting to see it on the big screen should be great. It is playing on Sunday, Sept. 5th at 8:00 pm and Thursday, Sept. 9th at 8:00 pm.

There are two main retrospectives this year, one on Korean cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, and one on the legendary Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkeley. Unfortunately, it looks like only two of the films in the Korean program will have English subtitles: Yoo Hyeon-muk’s 1961 AN AIMLESS BULLET (which played at Busan last year), and Lee Man-hee’s 1963 THE MARINES ARE GONE aka MARINE BATTLEGROUND. The Berkeley program features two early 30s works that helped make his reputation: GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 and FOOTLIGHT PARADE. Although Berkeley did not direct these films, his choreography so dominates that he is usually considered their auteur. The festival is also showing the Berkeley directed THE GANG’S ALL HERE (1943) and one of his last film projects, 1952′s MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID.

Among the other attractions this year, there are the 4 ALIEN films being played together as a midnight screening, and each is playing separately as well. The first two films, ALIEN (Ridley Scott, 1979) and ALIENS (James Cameron, 1986) are among the more acclaimed sci-fi pictures of the past few decades. Also screening this year is an early work by Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, 1988′s AS TEARS GO BY, a loose remake of Martin Scorsese’s 1973 MEAN STREETS. Although not one of Wong’s better films, an interesting early feature that has some of the markings of Wong’s later style (especially the use of the TOP GUN anthem “Take My Breath Away”).

Among the contemporary selection, I’m most excited to see the documentary TWO IN THE WAVE, which details the relationship between French New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. Other films I am hoping to see include Dogme director Thomas Vinterberg’s SUBMARINO and the Iranian film TEHROUN. The rest of the contemporary program is fairly obscure, but hopefully there will be some hidden gems.

The full line-up of films starts on Friday. The English website still doesn’t have any information, but the Korean site can be managed and is available at chiffs.kr

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