Epitaph: brief notes

Last month, at Columbia University, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and the Center for Korean Studies organized a one-day interdisciplinary colloque dedicated to Korean pop culture and its impact/influence in East Asia and in the rest of the world, judiciously entitled “Korean Waves [note the plural],” featuring some of the most respected and prestigious names of academic research on contemporary Korean culture and cinema: Richard Pena, Darcy Paquet, Charles Armstrong, Nancy Abelmann, Kyu-hyun Kim, Kyung Hyun Kim, Wondam Paik, TV-host-turned-graduate-student Park Jungsook, and others.
Supported by the Korea Foundation and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, the symposium opened on Friday, November 16th, with the premiere screening of the horrow film Epitaph (Gidam), in presence of the directors, Bum-Shik Jung and Sik Jeong, who introduced their first work, arguably the most remarkable film of a somewhat dull year (for an industry that prosperred for so long both locally and in the rest of Asia). A masterpiece that brilliantly connects beauty and horror, history and psychology.