Activism and Post-activism

What an impressive achievement! Kim's book is the perfect place to learn about the progressive wing of Korean documentary over the last forty years. The activist and post-activist documentaries that he examines tell the story of resistance and confrontation by workers, women, gays and lesbians, and many other exploited or oppressed groups, on the one hand, and both corporations and the state, on the other. Kim achieves an impeccable balance as he analyzes the interdependency of form and content in films that tackle issues from 'comfort women' in World War II to environmental activism more recently. Told with clarity and verve, this is a probing and perceptive account that amounts to an encyclopaedic analysis of the properties and values of a vast array of documentaries. * Bill Nichols, Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University * Activism and Post-activism is the landmark work on South Korean independent documentary that we have all been waiting for. Comprehensive in coverage, combining textual and contextual analysis of the movement since its beginnings in the 1980s, it lays a clear foundation and intervenes incisively in debates about periodization and the most important individual films. * Chris Berry, King's College London, co-author of China on Screen and co-editor of The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement * An exciting and original contribution to studies of Korean cinema. Kim provides not only the fullest history of Korean documentary cinema until now, its changing forms, concepts, methods, and aesthetics, but he also explores in depth a fascinating slice of Korean sociocultural history from the 1980s to the contemporary moment. His analysis of documentary cinema's shifting political and aesthetic meanings is thorough, original, and compelling. * Namhee Lee, University of California, Los Angeles, author of The Making of Minjung and Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea * A masterful, pioneering and readable history of the evolution of Korean documentary film over the last half-century. Combining close reading, theoretical sophistication, and a deep understanding of socio-political and economic context, this work exemplifies the best in documentary scholarship today. Essential reading for students and scholars of documentary film, and for those concerned with the present and future of non-fiction storytelling generally. * Patricia Aufderheide, American University, author of Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction *