The 5th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CINDI) opens on Wednesday night with the Korean debut of Hong Sang-soo’s latest THE DAY HE ARRIVES. The festival runs for one week and features a lineup of many Korean films along with a few acclaimed international auteurs such as Catherine Breillat’s THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, Nuri Bilge Ceylon’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, Kevin MacDonald’s LIFE IN A DAY, and a short film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul. There will also be a screening of Park Chan-wook’s iphone film NIGHT FISHING and of the restored Kim Ki-young film THE BOXES OF DEATH from 1955. Following the Jeonju model, there is a cine-class with British film scholar Ian Christie and French scholar Alain Bergala and a master class with Im Kwon-taek, who will be screening his film HANJI. Kim Ki-duk’s ARIRANG is screening but apparently without subtitles.

Information on the festival in English is available here.

Irene Kahn, the secretary general of Amnesty International is in Seoul this week. Yesterday, she met with the families of the six protesters who died in January after a fired broke out when riot police raided an abandoned building in Yongsan. Khan promised the families that AI would keep an eye on how the Korean government handles the incident and expressed hopes for a more thorough investigation. Also on Khan’s agenda, are meetings with senior officials from the Justice Ministry and National Human Rights Commission. (more…)

What’s Happening is The One One Four’s guide to the events in your city and others, published throughout the week, with a weekend edition on Friday.  All events are selected from our upcoming and continuing events calendar. If you have, or know of , an event  that you’d like in our guide, email all the details and any images to info@theoneonefour.com.

EXHIBITION | “Seoul, City of Movies” at the Cheonggyecheon Museum is a collection of posters, pamphlets, screen caps, and other materials from the early years of Korean cinema. You can expect insight into the national consciousness of the day, and hey – it’s a good place to get out of the cold. The event runs through Sunday and admission is free. The museum hours are 9 AM to 9 PM on weekdays, and 10 AM to 6 PM on weekends. To get to the Cheonggycheon Museum, go to Yongdu Station (Line 2), Exit 5. The museum is a 10 minute walk from the exit. (more…)

The recently-opened Dream Forest has been on my list since it first opened, although it wasn’t until even more recently that the construction crews finished. Once the site of a theme park named ‘Dream Park’, 북서울꿈의숲 (buk-Seo-ul-ggum-ui-sup) has an appropriate English name of ‘Dream Forest’. The more developed part sits between two relatively small mountains, which have their own sets of walking trails worth checking out if you’re in the hiking mood. The Korea Herald did a report on this newly-opened area, which gives a lot of details about what to expect. (more…)

The Chosun Ilbo will catch the attention of  patiently-waiting iPhone enthusiasts this morning. It reports that the Korean launch of the will be iPhone next week. There is no official statement from KT, the official supplier of the Apple product in Korea, but industry insiders are saying that November 28th is the date. They are also saying that KT will start online reservations for the iPhone tomorrow. 150,000 units will be sold at first, ranging between w250,000 and w300,000. The article also mentions that both the 3GS  and 3G iPhone models will be available here. (more…)

What: “Lazy Lime”  ready-made lime juice.

Where: Lotte Department Store, Miasamgeori Station (Line 4), Exit 1. (Mia-dong, Gangbuk-gu)

Why:  Actual limes are difficult to find outside of select international supermarkets.

Thanks to chrisinsouthkorea for sending us this week’s Spotted!. If you spot something hard to find in Korea send a photo and details to info@theoneonefour.com and we’ll post it on The One One Four.

Gyeonggi Province is planning to build the Great Train Express or GTX to link Seoul and its satellite cities. I can forgive the name (for now), since the Chosun uses the word “superfast” in their headline for the story. Regardless, the rail link addresses the over 60% increase in traffic between Seoul and the province over the last four years and plans to drastically cut the current rail/metro commute time from a number of Gyeonggi enclaves. We’re talking Samseong to Ilsan, Goyang in 22 minutes – on a train that can travel up to 200km/hour. Great idea, but someone should really veto that name. (more…)