Yesterday & Tomorrow

In the past, Korean Film Festival of Canada was one of the projects developed under the umbrella of Ciné Asie Film Institute (Ciné-Asie). Ciné-Asie is a non-profit organization in Canada, established in 1996, serving the media arts community and focusing on the Asian-Canadian contents in arts and cultures. The role of Ciné-Asie was to give a voice to Asian and Asian-Canadian media arts works that would otherwise be rarely showcased to local audiences. Ciné-Asie’s vision is to bring Asian-Canadian filmmakers into the public view and provide an opportunity for members of the Asian-Canadian community to celebrate their cultural heritage.

Based in the artistically rich city of Montréal, Ciné-Asie has made contributions to the cultural environment since its founding year by fostering Asian heritage films and Asian-Canadian independent films.  Ciné-Asie’s first project was the nationally acclaimed “Three Korean Master Filmmakers” in collaboration with MOMA in New York, which made its mark in the Canadian media arts scene and was awarded the Team Canada Project from Jean-Critien Administration of Canada. The project toured four main cities across Canada Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, in 1997.

Since its inception, this organization has collaborated with other Canadian festivals such as Reel Asian Film Festival in Toronto, Fantasia Film Festival and Festival Accès Asie in Montréal. Ciné-Asie has also formed strong partnerships with Cinémathèque québécoise, Canadian Film Institute, Harbourfront Centre, Pacific Cinémathèque, AMC Forum, and the Smithsonian Museum to achieve our goals and artistic visions that support the works of Asian and Asian-Canadian media arts and their communities across North America. . 

Ciné-Asie has brought culturally rich media arts events to the city of Montréal, including the 2006 retrospective, “Regard sur le Cinéma Sud-coréen,” and the 2008 “Hong Sang-Soo Retrospective,” both held at Cinémathèque Québécoise. Ciné-Asie also organized, in partnership with Concordia University and New York City’s Film Society of Lincoln Centre, the retrospective “Chinese Cinema - 1993-1949.”

Korean Film Festival Canada (KFFC) has itself historically been one of the festival projects that Ciné-Asie organised. In 2019, Korean Film Festival of Canada evolved to become a permanently independent entity. 2019 also marked the first time that the festival was organized in partnership with the Centre d'études asiatiques de l'Université de Montréal (CÉTASE). It was also our first attempt to integrate the festival in the center of a francophone environment since the festival’s establishment in 1996. 

In 2020, due to the pandemic situation, for the first time in its history KFFC will be held in an online capacity, complete with film programming, workshops, and a conference which follows the festival’s chosen theme: “Narratives Beyond Borders: New Wave Korean Cinema by Women Directors (1950-2020, Series I).”

This year is a turning point for us, as we have entered into a partnership with Jeonju International Film Festival, connecting Korea and Canada through cinema and the arts, reflecting our motto, Where East meets West.Jeonju International Film Festival is the second largest film festival in Korea and the largest one in the world that focuses on discovering, presenting, and supporting the production of cutting edge independent film and digital media arts In 2020, KFFC continues our partnership with the “Asian Studies Centre of Montreal University (CETASE),” one of the core institutions of Asian research and studies in Canada. KFFC is financially supported this year by the Korea Foundation, Ville de Montréal, CETASE, and the Fondation Communautaire Coréens-Canadiens du Québec.