SEOUL International Women's Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Seoul, South Korea. The first festival took place on April 1, 1997, which marked the second appearance of the international film festival in Korea following Busan International Film Festival launched in 1996. This was a time when there was not a clear idea on how to define a film festival. During this time, SEOUL International Women's Film Festival came up with the catchphrase "See The World Through Women's Eyes.This phrase set its main goal to introduce women's films that explore “women’s reality from the women’s perspectives.” The 1st edition of Seoul International Film Festival focused on featuring films by women, for women, and of women. The festival received a number of positive reviews from the audience, which was never anticipated this much. SeoulInternational Film Festival, which used to occur every other year, has become an annual event since the 3rd festival in 2001 as a result of continuous audience support. For the 6th edition in 2004, SEOUL International Women's Film Festival looked for changes by relocating the festival office and venues to Sinchon, the street of youth and culture. The Queer Rainbow section, which presented films about life and culture of gender minorities, was first introduced in the 9th edition in 2007. In 2015, SEOUL International Film Festival attempted to build a new festival identity and became a cultural platform more approachable for a wide variety of audiences by changing the official English title of the festival from International Women's Film Festival in Seoul to SEOUL International Women's Film Festival and by retouching the festival logo used for last 17 years.
Characteristics
Received attention as the world's largest international women's film festival.
Playing a central role in building a women's film network both across Asia and the world.
Discovering Asian women filmmakers and supporting women's film projects.
Creating a new breed of women's culture as an agent of cultural production.
Forums
SIWFF represented itself as an activist forum in light of the Candlelight Revolution which occurred in 2016 at Ewha University. This on campus activism movement occurred after students found out the university illegitimately admitted a student due to her connection with the Korean president at the time, Park Geun-Hye. The campus is just a few minutes away from the festival cinema which was hosting its 18th edition of the festival. Accordingly, audience numbers for this year rose exponentially from previous years. According to Hyeyoung Cho, a programmer for the festival, the 'young-young feminists' were responsible for the high turnout, the same constituency responsible for the Candlelight Revolution. These 'young-young feminists' were dedicated to volunteer for the festival while also looking for feminist role models within the film industry. They showed up in numbers to show their support for relevant documentaries to their own experience, such as Candle Wave Feminists, directed by Kangyu Garam.
Initiative Towards Gender Equality
SIWFF addressed the #MeToo movement during its 20th film festival in light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The 2013 Sundance documentary about Anita Hillwas shown which consisted of a similar scandal involving her sexual assault accusations against U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas. SIWFF added a panel following the screening to dissect the recent news of similar accounts while critiquing the gender hierarchy embedded in our society. In March 2018, SIWFF's director Kim Sunah worked with the government agency KOFIC to broaden the film industry's standards regarding gender equality. She shed light on the inequality stemming from gender issues and sexual abuse, which then influenced the overall film industry and the films produced. The film festival also strives to actively raise awareness about women's issues through cinema. For example, for this year's 20th festival, SIWFF added an International Feature Competition to shed light on gender inequality from a diverse perspective. The Korean Feature Competition was also added in order to support the wide perspectives of female filmmakers. This year's festival will also highlight women's films via the 20th Anniversary Retrospective screenings to acknowledge the history of women's films. The 20th SIWFF also integrated two new international conferences to the program- "Film Feminism's New Challenge: From Stare to Body and to the Joy of Difference" and "Policies and Strategies for Gender Equality in Film Industry." These conferences strive to evaluate the role of film and feminism embedded in social trends like online hashtag movements and gender politics. Some countries the conferences discuss include France, Taiwan, and South Korea. The film festival did not shy away from recognizing the 16 missing people in the 2014 South Korean sinking of MV Sewol Ferry Accident. The 16th film festival opened up with a solemn celebration to honor the victims in the accident while featuring wartime films in their lineup.
Awards
International Feature Competition: Launched in 2018 as the highlight of the SIWFF, International Feature Competition aims to create a female-friendly and gender-sensitive film production environment which would grant women filmmakers more opportunities to make feature-length films starring female protagonists. This section features the categories Best Film, Best Director, and Special Jury Prize.
Korean Feature Competition: This section is designed for promoting Korean women’s fiction and documentary films excellently directed with thoughtful feminist perspectives. The selected films compete for the BestKorean Film Award.
Asian Short Film & Video Competition: This section took off in 2001 to discover talented Asian women filmmakers. It has produced a number of talented Korean women directors such as Jeong Jae-eun, Park Chan-ok, Jang Hee-sun, Lee Kyoung-mi, Roh Deok, and Hong Jae-hee. This section also has an award for the Best Director and an Audience Award.
I-Teens: This section is to discover teenage female filmmakers and support their future. During the festival period, the teenage audience jury called “I-Teens” views the films selected after preliminary evaluations, decides on the winner of “I-Teens Award” through passionate discussion, and announces the result at the closing ceremony.
Pitch & Catch: This section of the competition is dedicated to supporting work produced by female filmmakers. The 'Pitch & Catch' pitch competition is split up into two subsections, Feature Film and Documentary Film. The 'Feature Film' awards are the Megabox Grand Award, the Megabox Award, and the Audience Award. The 'Documentary Film' awards are the Ock-Rang Award, the Post Fin Award, the JINJIN Award, and The Audience Award. SEOUL International Women's Film Festival supports documentary production in collaboration with the Ock-Rang Cultural Foundation. This program is to promote and support the documentary projects led by Korean women directors as well as to raise social awareness about women's issues. What originally was known as the 'Documentary Ock-Rang Award' was changed to the 'Documentary' subsection of 'Pitch & Catch.'
