'SPACES OF ASIAN CINEMA': Film festival and symposium

Five films are on the program for the 2009 Asia Pacific Film Festival: “Spaces of Asian Cinema.” The festival includes a symposium, with three keynote speeches and four panel discussions.

The films are scheduled to be shown in 6 Olson Hall, with admission free and open to the public.

Nov. 4

• 6:15 p.m. — One Shining Day, directed by Kim Sung-ho, Kim Jong-kwan and Min Dong-hyun (South Korea, 2007). Three independent Korean directors offer three funny, poignant and ultimately hopeful stories about the contemporary relationships between Koreans and Japanese.

• 8:30 p.m. — Pulse, directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Japan, 2001). A master of the Japanese horror genre, Kiyoshi delivers a tale about digital phantoms that return to the world of the living through electronic appliances.

Nov. 5

• 8:30 p.m. — 3-Iron, directed by Kim Ki-duk (South Korea, 2004). This award-winning film tells the story of a young man who finds shelter in the houses of strangers — and in a love triangle. Special Director’s Award at the 2004 Venice Film Festival.

Nov. 6

• 6:15 p.m. — If You Are the One, directed by Feng Xiaogang (China, 2009). Feng  delivers yet another “Chinese New Year blockbuster,” a comedy about the unlikely romances of a middle-age man and his even more unlikely “true love.”

• 8:30 p.m. — Departures, directed by Takita Yojiro (Japan, 2008). A newly unemployed cellist decides to take a job preparing the dead for funerals in this funny, poignant and touching story. 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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The symposium also is free and open to the public; the location is the Andrews Conference Room, 2203 Social Sciences and Humanities Building.

Organizers said: “While our festival is focused on Asian films, we hope the symposium, given its theoretical concerns, would be useful and interesting to a broader audience.”

Symposium schedule:

Nov. 5

• 9:30 a.m. — Yingjin Zhang, keynote: “Cinema, Space and Polylocality in a Globalizing China.”

10:40 — Panel: "Spaces of Spectrality and Memory."

1:30 p.m. — Akira Mizuta Lippit, keynote: “The Inside Image Out, Japan."

2:40 p.m. — Panel: "Transcultural and Transnational Spaces."

4:40 p.m. — Panel: "Real and Imaginary Spaces."

Nov. 6

10:30 a.m. — Panel: "Postcolonial and Gendered Spaces."

• 11:50 a.m. — Kyu-hyun Kim, UC Davis, keynote: “Concrete Purgatory — Apartment Complexes as Liminal Spaces and the Anxieties of Modernity in Contemporary South Korean Cinema."

Sponsors: Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, East Asian Studies, and the UC Davis Humanities Institute Research Cluster on Space and Spatiality

More information: langlit.ucdavis.edu/home/shlu.

Media Resources

Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu

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