Taiwan, South Korea film institutes sign collaboration agreement

2019/06/03

A memorandum of understanding on promoting film preservation and cultural exchanges was concluded by the Taiwan Film Institute and the Korean Film Archive (KOFA) May 28 in Seoul.
 
 Under the pact, the organizations will collaborate in training digital restoration professionals, restoring classic films, arranging screening events, and translating and publishing related research. Inked by TFI Director Chen Pin-chuan and KOFA Director Joo Jin-sook, the accord is expected to further deepen robust cooperative links between the two sides.
 
 Through membership in the Belgium-headquartered International Federation of Film Archives and the Philippines-based Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association, the institutes have partnered on several film restoration and preservation projects in recent years.
 
 One prominent example saw TFI donate the last known copy of “Cool and Cold” to KOFA. Once considered lost, the 1962 South Korean production underwent a 4K restoration and was re-released in 2017.
 
 KOFA also worked with TFI on a project to retrieve the original film reels for “Raining in the Mountain,” a 1979 Taiwan-Hong Kong drama by late writer-director King Hu. A digital restoration of the 120-minute classic premiered last year.
 
 According to TFI, these projects spotlight the benefits of expanding collaboration among archival organizations throughout the region. It is expected that the new pact will strengthen the preservation and promotional efforts of both sides, it added.
 
 Launched as a movie archive in 1979, TFI was reconstituted by the Ministry of Culture in 2014 to serve as the nation’s primary facility for film restoration and the international promotion of Taiwan cinema. It manages a collection spanning more than 17,500 Taiwan-produced and Chinese-language films, as well as almost 3,000 foreign movies, and hosts the annual Taiwan International Documentary Festival.
 
 Established in 1974 as the Korean Film Depository, state-backed KOFA is the primary film archive in the East Asian country.

Source: Taiwan Today (https://taiwantoday.tw/index.php)