From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, Hollywood dominated the South Korean film market, just as it did in many other countries. Most film critics, students, and people who worked in the industry were not optimistic about the future of South Korean cinema. Surprisingly, in 2001, South Korea became the country in recent history to reclaim its domestic film market from Hollywood, and soon thereafter South Korean cinema entered its most iconic year in its history. The year 2003 brought a wave of new South Korean films, such as Oldboy, A Good Lawyer's Wife, Save the Green Planet!, Tale of Two Sisters, and Memories of Murder. South Korean cinema has since reached new heights.

What happened in South Korea between the mid-1990s and 2003 that provided the conditions necessary for the rise of South Korean cinema? In this keynote lecture, Hong-Joon Kim explains the historical context of South Korean cinema’s renaissance in the early 2000s. Kim, now the Director of Korean Film Archive, was one of the central figures in the resurgence of South Korean cinema. Kim will share his experience in the South Korean film industry, as well as his life journey as a filmmaker, film critic, film festival director, film educator, and policymaker who witnessed the blossoming of the industry in his home country during a critical period of its success in world cinema.