KOFA Restoration Program: Short Film Session — The Air of the Times, A Resistant Gaze

If Against War, For Peace: Scars and Memory reflects the spirit of our times, this short film session brings together works that turned the camera directly on the era in which each film was made — capturing and recording the zeitgeist of their own moment. Five short films totaling 103 minutes, each rooted in the campuses, labor sites, and cold underbelly of capitalism that defined the 1980s and '90s. From Winter's Threshold (1989) and Möbius' Daughter (1981) to Simultaneously (1998), Parts (1986), and Incoherence (1994) — from actor Choi Min-sik's screen debut to director Bong Joon-ho's graduation film from the Korean Academy of Film Arts — there is a particular pleasure in tracing the origins of names that have since become legends.

• Incoherence

  Director : Bong Joon-ho 1994 31min 1.85:1

  A university professor caught in a compromising situation with an adult magazine. A newspaper editorial writer who habitually steals the neighbor's milk during his morning jog. An elite prosecutor, blind drunk, caught by a security guard while attempting to relieve himself on the street. The film exposes the hollow pretensions and moral bankruptcy of three pillars of society through an omnibus of episodes.
  The film offers a glimpse of Bong Joon-ho's world in its earliest form — including the underground spaces that would later resurface in Barking Dogs Never Bite and Parasite. A graduation film from the 11th class of the Korean Academy of Film Arts. Digitized to 4K resolution in 2019 from a 16mm original negative film collected in 2002.

• Simultaneity

  Director : KIM Seong-sook 1998 19min 1.85:1

  "The dream vanished the moment it came true." A man who lost his fingers in a factory press accident and left his job, and a young man drifting through the Sewoon Arcade selling illegal pornographic videos. Meeting in the cramped space of a lottery booth, caught between uneasy police raids, the two build a quiet bond amid the harsh noise of the city. One dreams of making enough money to leave this place behind; the other watches him anxiously, staying close without a word. But one rainy night, the wail of police sirens brings their fragile relationship to a breaking point.
  A work that captures the shadowy underside of Korean society in the immediate aftermath of the IMF financial crisis — the helpless desires of youth adrift in a system that has no place for them — through a sensory soundscape and refined visual storytelling. 2025 4K restoration.

• Accessories (Busokpum)

  Director : Lee Hyun-ae 1986 16min 1.33:1

  Hee-young, a fresh university graduate, prepares to enter the workforce with her résumé in hand. But the world offers her little room. From the kitchen where she does the dishes, her mother's voice drifts in: "A woman's fate is a gourd's fate" — implying marriage is her true destination. The job listings in the newspaper seek only men. At the interview she finally manages to secure, the male interviewer asks not about her qualifications but how many years she plans to work, and what score she would give her own femininity. She lands the job, but while her male colleagues read newspapers and issue instructions, her days are filled with endless typing, coffee runs, and overtime stretching past midnight.
  The film weaves through Hee-young's story a montage of advertisements that reduce women to sexual commodities, a lone goldfish circling its tank, footage from a debate on abolishing the mandatory retirement age of 25 for women, and the streets of Seoul in 1986 — a cold and precise record of the conditions facing women of that era. Produced by "Chang of Tto Hana eui Munhwa" (Another Culture's 'Chang'), a women's film collective. Digitized to 2K resolution in 2024 from an 8mm print film donated in 2023.

• On the Way the Winter

  Director : Hong Jun-seok 1989 23min

  Gidal is preparing a production of Woyzeck for the university's winter theater workshop. He dismisses himself as "a delinquent exempt from morality," yet beneath the bravado lies a young man adrift — anxious about the future, powerless to change the world around him. Knocked back at job interviews, pushed around by an arrogant and unreasonable professor, he feels like "a parasite clinging to the sole of a giant's foot." On Christmas Eve, trapped writing a research report for the professor, Gidal and his colleague Myosuk find themselves on the streets of Seoul, glittering with holiday decorations — and pull off a small act of defiance.
  A 1989 graduation film from the Korean Academy of Film Arts, and the screen debut of actor Choi Min-sik. Digitized to 4K resolution in 2023 from a 16mm original negative film collected in 2002.

• Daughter of Mobius (Moebiuseuui ttal)

  Director : Kim Eui-suk 1981 16min 1.85:1

  "My name is Kim Gi-suk." Twenty-nine years old, single, contemporary dancer. In a world where everyone she meets asks "when are you getting married?", Kim Gi-suk says she only feels at ease in the space where she dances. The camera follows her through the streets of Seoul, eating alone, tossing off her socks and living freely on her own terms. "It's quite fortunate that I still don't have a man." Her narration, which likens the men on the street to "goods in a shop where you have money but nothing you actually want to buy," swiftly turns the tables on who does the choosing and who gets chosen.
  Based on real-life contemporary dancer Kim Gi-in of a contemporary dance company, this hybrid documentary-fiction film stands out for its experimental use of narration, double exposure, and a transition from black-and-white to color. Digitized to 4K resolution in 2021 from a 16mm print film donated in 1981.