Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Appoints 6 KOFIC Committee Members

Park Kiyong, a professor at Dankook University's Graduate School of Culture and Arts, was elected as the new chairperson of Korean Film Council. Kim Sunah, a professor at Dankook University, was appointed as the vice-chairperson. Korean Film Council announced on January 7 that chairperson Park Kiyong was elected as the chairperson through a mutual vote at the council meeting.

The new chairperson Park Kiyong is the director of the movie Motel Cactus (1997), the director of Korean Academy of Film Arts, and the executive committee member of the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival. He was also appointed a member of Korean Film Council in 2021. The term of the office of the new chairperson Park Kiyong is until January 2024.

Prof. Kim Sunah, the new vice-chairperson, was a former producer who planned and produced Rikidozan: A Hero Extraordinary (2004), Save the Green Planet (2003), and One Fine Spring Day (2001). She was also elected as the chairperson of Women in Film Korea in 2021.

And before that, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on January 4 that it had appointed six people to join the Korean Film Council non-executive committee members.

Among the six new committee members is Kim Donghyun, the director of the Association Korean Independent Film and Video (KIFV), a non-profit association that has supported the ecosystem of Korea’s independent film industry since 1998.

Choi Nakyong is the head of Full Film, a production and distribution company specializing in documentaries. Their most notable film is Kang Sangwoo’s KIM-GUN (2018), a non-fiction work that investigates a picture from the Gwangju Massacre of 1980 of an alleged North Korean instigator. The film earned the Grand Prize at the Seoul Independent Film Festival and the Wildflower Film Awards Korea.

Kim Donghyun (no relation to the head of KIFV) is the director of the film division in the film production company, which is responsible for the big-budget SF-action-drama Space Sweepers (2021), among others.

Cinematographer Ahn Byungho worked up through the camera departments of several notable Korean films, including Bong Joonho’s Mother (2009), and later held the post of chairperson of the Federation of Korea Movie Workers’ Union.

Kim Iseok is a professor of film at Dongeui University, also in Busan.

The six members will serve in their new posts until January 3, 2025.

According to a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the appointments were made “in consideration of various factors such as professionalism and experience in the film arts and film industry, gender and age, among candidates recommended by film-related organizations.”