KOREA FOUNDATION

[Letter from a KF Visiting Fellow] Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” and Studies on Korean Women’s Filmmaking

Last September, my book, The Films of Bong Joon Ho, was published by Rutgers University Press. The Korea Foundation’s Fellowship for Field Research has been instrumental in the completion—to be exact, the final revision—of the manu. I had submitted the final manu before the start of my fellowship, and accordingly, I had planned to spend my six-month fellowship stay in Korea (from June to December 2019) conducting field research for my second book project on women’s filmmaking in Korea. However, when Bong Joon Ho’s new film Parasite won the highly coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019, the plan had to be changed. It became imperative that I include an analysis of the film in my upcoming book.

Thanks to the Korea Foundation, which generously accommodated my change of research plan in Korea, I was able to work on adding a short chapter on the film Parasite to my book. I rewrote the previous conclusion to turn it into a short chapter. It would not have been possible without the KF fellowship because the film would not be released in the US until October of that year. When I arrived in Seoul to start my sabbatical and the KF fellowship, I went to watch Parasite in the theater the very next day. And soon, the film became available on streaming services within Korea, so I was able to re-watch the film as much as I needed to. I also presented part of the chapter at the Forum BIFF organized by the Busan International Film Festival in October 2019. At the forum, I was able to connect to Korean film scholars from around the world.

During the fellowship period, I was also able to start my field research on women’s filmmaking in Korea. I met and interviewed major female film producers who played prominent roles in the emergence of New Korean cinema in the late 1990s and continue to be a significant creative force in the Korean film industry. I am grateful for the Korea Foundation’s support for bringing my book publication to fruition and successfully launching my new research project.

Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Chapman UniversityDr. Nam Lee, United States

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