For the first time, the Cold Hawaii surf and film festival has a country in focus. Over the last couple of years Korean culture has moved into western mainstream media, with both music and film. In 2019 head of programming, Maritte, visited Bifan and learned that Korea has a rich and very popular surf culture stretching all around the Korean peninsula. From here the hunt began to see if it would be possible to find more films centered around suring in Korea.
We were in luck, and were able to assemble a programme of 4 films all depicting both the surf culture, but also the rich film culture in Korea.
On Saturday, at 2pm, we start out with a glimpse into the daily life of the surfers of Jukdo, with LEE Hyeon-seung Jukdo Surfing Diary. Which might not be so different from the life we have here in Klitmøller.
When speaking to director LEE, he mentioned that he wanted to make a film about the local community before too much changed, with the popularization of the area – and to do so, he made the decision to not only use professional actors but include the locals in the making of and acting in the film – to make it as authentic as possible and get to the core of the thoughts and struggles the local community faces.
After Jukdo we present to films that are more true to traditional surf film, with KIM Dong-ki and KIM Sung-eun’s short anthology The Winter Surf 1 and The Wither Surf 2: Passion.
We have learned that in Korea, they winter surf instead of calling it cold water surfing – and boy is it cold in Korea in the winter. KIM Dong-ki and KIM Sung-eun takesus on a cold journey through the East Coast of Korea and we get to know some of the most prolific surf influences in Korea and who knows, maybe you recognize some of them from Jukdo Surfing Diary.
We finish off the Korean Wave with a true Korean rom-com, also known as K-drama, Welcome to the Guesthouse, directed by SHIM Yohan. If you are new to the genre one thing you will take with you, after watching a kdrama is happiness. Welcome to the Guesthouse, hits all the tropes not only within the kdrama genre, but also in the surf community. We get action, romance, poop-face and comedy – we have the mandatory sound effects that spark a bit of magic in the story.
During our Korean block we will be serving some Korean traditional drinks, with Soju (distilled rice alcohol) and Somaek (Beer and Soju). We will have some snacks for you to enjoy as well, to spice things up and of course play korean music in between the films.
So join us for a fun afternoon full of cultural crossovers. 환영합니다
Cold Hawaii Surf & Film Festival 