Korean film figures condemn Venice for honoring Kim Ki-duk despite sexual assault allegations

South Korean film organizations are criticizing the Venice Film Festival for showing the late Korean author Kim Ki-duk’s latest film, despite the many allegations of sexual abuse he faced before his death.

Kim died of complications related to Covid-19 in Latvia in 2020. He spent the last few years of his life mostly abroad after a wave of sexual assault allegations against him at the height of Korea’s #MeToo movement clouded his reputation at home. At the time of his death, the director was working on his latest feature film project, the Estonian-Kyrgyzstan-Latvian project. call of God. The film was completed posthumously by Kim’s Estonian collaborator, film director and producer Arthur Weber. The world premiere of the work will take place on September 6 in Venice, at a non-competitive time.

on appeal the hollywood reporterThe Federation of Korean Film Workers Unions openly criticized Venice’s decision to promote the late director’s work in this way.

“Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean what happened is going to suddenly disappear,” says Lee Sang-gil, director of the union. “Kim never apologized to his victims and instead denied his allegations through a series of lawsuits. For victims, their time with Kim will always be an indelible scar on their careers. After the accident, none of the victims recovered and returned to work on the set.”

On August 26, Korea Womenlink, a Seoul-based advocacy organization working to combat violence against women, sent a letter of condemnation to the organizers of the Venice festival.

“The late director Kim Ki-duk was fined for physically assaulting an actress during filming,” the statement said. “Although Kim clearly committed a heinous crime, he tried to track down the accuser and, instead of apologizing, sued the victim for defamation. But the Venice International Film Festival decided to screen its film in her honor, even though she was spared sexual assault.

Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera says THR Who decided to include Kim call of God This year’s program features a deceased director in part because of the long history with the festival.

Known for his portrayals of the underworld of Korean society, sequences of extreme violence, and graphically extreme content, Kim’s work was celebrated at major Western film festivals but fared poorly at the Korean box office. In 2004, he won the two Berlin Silver Bears for Best Director. Samaritan girl, a drama about teenage prostitutes; and the Venice Silver Lion for Best Director iron 3, a horror drama. It later won the Venice Golden Lion for Best Picture in 2012 for the psychosexual drama. pity.

“I would say it was a kind of commitment to the director, a kind of mutual respect and trust between the filmmaker and the festival,” says Barbera. THR On Venice’s long association with the director. “When Kim Ki-duk’s Estonian friends contacted me a year ago to say they were working on finishing a film that Ki-duk couldn’t finish because he died during production, I thought we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. was added.

“Most people don’t want to badmouth Kim anymore because he’s dead,” said Seo Hye-jin, a former lawyer for the actress who claimed in 2017 that the director physically abused her and forced her into full contact. Her unscripted sex scenes during the production of her 2013 film. Moebius. “It is worrying for the victims. The police closed the investigation after his death and the criminal complaint for his sexual assault never saw the light of day. But he received fines for stalking and other physical abuse, and there was plenty of evidence to support the victim’s claims.”

Seo, who has represented other female victims in Korea’s #MeToo cases, including the sexual harassment case against Kone, a famous poet often named as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, said Kim’s victims continue to live in a “nightmare” . “. situation.” “

During the prosecutor’s investigation, Kim admitted that there had been physical abuse on set. Moebius, including him repeatedly punching an actor in the face, but explained that it was part of his “acting training process”. When asked about the victim’s claim that he forced her to touch the actor’s penis, a scene that was not part of the script, Kim denied the allegations, saying that she did not remember the situation.

In 2018, Korean broadcaster MBC issued an explosive investigative report into additional allegations of sexual abuse against Kim, based on testimonies from several female victims and witnesses to her filming, including two male employees who said the “horrific incidents” were common for Kim. Production. An actress, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her career, said Kim and the male actor MoebiusCho Jae-hyun raped her in a hotel room during filming. Other actors claimed that Kim made a sexual relationship with him a prerequisite for accepting the role.

Kim vehemently denied the allegations and sued her accusers and MBC for defamation. He lost a case against MBC, appealed and lost again. The court stated that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate that the claims made by the actors and film professionals on the show were false.

Weber, an Estonian director who completed call of GodThey agreed to do an email interview THR opposite Venice. But the filmmaker later did not respond to questions about his creative relationship with Kim and his response to the assault allegations against his former colleague in Korea.

Collectif 50/50, a French film collective advocating gender equality and justice in the European film industry, also did not respond to a request for comment.

“It is unfortunate that Venice invites and celebrates Kim’s film without mentioning his actions as a sex offender,” said Choi Eun-min, a spokeswoman for the Deun Deun Center, a Seoul-based organization founded by Korea’s #MeToo movement during and which focuses on sexual assault prevention and survivor support. “The reason #metoo abusers can come back and continue their work is because these organizers don’t speak out and praise their connection to sexual violence and human rights abuses.” [the perpetrators’] Films. It can be seen as an act of forgiveness to the perpetrators of their violence.”

Barbera clarified THR about its justification for including Kim’s latest film.” We had to face the same situation, for example, two years ago when we presented officer and spy By Roman Polanski in Competition. I think what I said at the time still stands,” he said. “We’re not a courtroom. I’m not a judge who can judge the personality of a man or a woman. I’m a film critic. judge the quality of what is presented at the festival. I think this separation between a man and an artist is inevitable. This is part of art history. I said this before, we know this [Italian painter] Caravaggio was a murderer. But he produced some of the most important masterpieces of 17th-century Italian painting. What to do? Removing paintings from museums because Caravaggio was a murderer? I don’t think…. We are not here to judge a person or a person. We are here to judge the quality of what you do. Sometimes people who do good do bad.”

Lee, director of the Korean Film Workers Union, notes that the portrayal of women in Kim’s films has always been a point of contention in the Korean film community.

“As film professionals, we support artists’ freedom of expression,” he says. “If your image were simply an act of creative expression, it wouldn’t be a problem for many. But it’s scary to think that such brutal scenes are a reflection of the atmosphere on your set. [to some extent].”

Still, Lee wants to believe that Venice made the decision to ask Kim to work without knowing all the legal circumstances surrounding the allegations against her.

“He died without a decisive court decision,” he adds. “It’s unfortunate for all parties.”

Scott Roxborough in Germany contributed to this report.