Volunteering at the London Korean Film Festival - Work Experience

Work Experience - Digital Marketing for The London Korean Film Festival 2017

Through the Korean Cultural Course at the K-Pop Academy, an exceptional cultural course I was able to participate in the autumn of 2017, I had the opportunity to help to out on the London Korean Film Festival. Below I'm going to write about my experience in detail, highlighting elements which show my eligibility for the Silver Arts Award application as part of the Film Oxford's iCreative course. 

(Interested in my journey on the course? Feel free to read various articles on cultural experiences and learning takeaways on my blog here: https://ldnkpopacademy.blogspot.co.uk/ )

'Jumping in'

Me working for festival came from a place of feeling thankful. As a proud participant of the Korean culture course, I felt I needed to give back to organisers who did an exceptional job at giving insight to a beloved culture of mine. Having worked in Film Festival promotion before with coordinationg activites I knew I can help. 

Working a full time job in Oxford at a corporate communication and branding agency couldn't stop me from jumping in on evenings, weekends and even on my birthday - if you love something and want to see it succeed, nothing can stop you, as this experience reminded me. 

Learning about this aspect of the culture, and experiencing its struggles, elements and stories through visual narrative development was a unique and holistic experience. After diving into the current social issues during my studies, it was really eye-opening to see artists respond to the questions stirring in their country.

'What's on offer?'

This year's leading theme was the Korean noir which is not challenging choice from a marketing perspective. Noir as a genre is constantly explored my filmmakers but is not current in its essence despite the numerous attempts or reviving and make it a blockbuster genre. This might be an isolated opinion, but one thing is for sure - it definitely needs clever and innovative promotion technique

It didn't help our situation that multiple region our national indie film festivals were happening either in the same timeframe or in an overlapping manner, including The London East Asia Film Festival.

The selection, however gave the edge to the festival with multiple UK and International premieres, with a special focus on Korean Noir and including everything from Indie Firepower and Cinema Now to Women's Voices, Classics Revisited: Bae Chang-ho Retrospective, Documentaries, Artist Video, Animations, Mise-en-scène Shorts and a roster of very special guests in attendance.

Eye-opening films - a.k.a the times I didn't spent with working 

'Come Together' Korea’s highly competitive nature goes under the microscope in Shin Dong-il’s heated new drama about a harried family of three. 

After watching the emotionally charged sharp drama, Come Together, I quickly ran to a panel discussion on Banseom Pirates, a thrilling and multilayered documentary on a politically charged punk duo, whose spirit and witty creative output quickly became part of bigger conversation on censorship and national security. (This article on Dazed, definitely worth the time spent reading it.)

Merciless, the crime drama grabbing attention not only by its fast-paced editing, but its indie/mainstream production mixture. Looking into the production of the film we can actually fins very interesting points about the Korean entertainment industry where it's common to develop a multi-talented profile especially for male artist who need to navigate their careers through the 2 year long obligatory military service. 

Professional takeaways

In 2015 I was a proud member of the @verziofilmfest promotional team working for Hungary's only Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. I raised the bar this year - and joined @london_korean_film_festival 's digital marketing team trying to use what I learned about reporting so far. Narratives are even more challenging and can seem foreign to many, with focus on korean noir, introducing niche and cross-genre productions - but after participating on @kccuk 's amazing #kpopacademy course, there was no way for me not to give back, hopefully the most useful way I can. After all, what better way there is to learn, than working hard to make things happen? #workhard #volunteering #art #festival #film #organising #kccuk

A post shared by Ildi Nagy (@ildi_nagy) on Nov 3, 2017 at 9:26am PDT

Working in event management - and essentialyy in some parts organisign a film festival IS event management requires extreme adaptibility and flexibility. Being part of a smaller team give you the chance participate in various aspects of the festival, but on the other hand this also means that you can be called in for anything from data analytics to proofreading, and from creative messaging to monotone administrattive. Both as my brief but valuable experience with the London Korean Film Festival proved again - that's that helps you to make projects successful.