Internationally acclaimed directors Takeshi Kitano from Japan and Kim Ki-duk from South Korea said at the Venice film festival that making art house films in Asia was a daunting task.
With his bleak morality tale Pieta now one of the favourites to win the Golden Lion prize in Venice on Saturday, Kim said he regretted that audiences at home still did not sufficiently appreciate his foreign award-winning work.
“The Korean film industry is still lacking compared to the European and American markets,” Kim said in an interview at the Excelsior Hotel, striking an arresting sight in his camouflage jacket, baggy trousers and red-laced boots.
“They still view films as entertainment instead of looking at artistic value or social issues,” said Kim, who despite having made 18 movies is still seen as something of an outsider in Korean cinema and has no formal schooling in film.
Kitano, who premiered his yakuza flick Outrage Beyond at the festival this week, went even further saying art house cinema in Japan was in “dire” straits.
“You have to make a film like Avengers to get recognition,” he told a select group of reporters on the sidelines of the world’s oldest film festival.