Jeonju City announced that large-scale cultural festivals including the 20th Jeonju International Film Festival and Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival will take place in Jeonju, the most Korean city and one of the major tourist cities in Asia in May 2019.
The 20th Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) will be held from May 2 to 11 at Jeonju Movie Street and Palbok Art Factory, a renovated abandoned factory, under the slogan of “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed.”
The festival features 275 movies from 57 countries (201 features, 74 shorts) including the opening film Piranhas, directed by Claudio Giovannesi and the closing film Skin, directed by Guy Nattiv.
The festival celebrates its 20th anniversary with special program ‘Newtro Jeonju’ in which directors invigorated the festival for the last 20 years talk about its history, tradition, identity, and future. Jeonju International Film Festival official website: www.jiff.or.kr
23rd Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival, which promotes industrialization and globalization of traditional Hanji that has stood the test of a thousand years, is going to take place with numerous events at Korea Traditional Culture Center in Jeonju from May 4 to 6. The festival is aimed at industrialization and globalization of Hanji under the slogan of “Jeonju, Bloom with Hanji!”
Visitors will be able to see the Hanji Fashion Show and high-quality Hanji handicrafts at the National Hanji Crafts Competition. 41 experience programs including various kinds of traditional Hanji crafts and Hanji making are featured. Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival official website: www.jhanji.or.kr
“Jeonju is the most Korean cultural tourist city where you can experience the essence of Korean culture such as traditional house Hanok, traditional clothes Hanbok, traditional paper Hanji and traditional cuisine Hansik,” Kim Seung-Su, mayor of Jeonju said. “We sincerely hope that visitors enjoy our film festival and see first-hand traditional Hanji.”
In addition a bunch of cultural events will take place in Jeonju are Airing out The Annals of the Choson Dynasty, a reenactment of traditional event where people hung out the annals to dry (May 5), and Night of Jeonju & Heritage Story (May 25-26), which allows visitors to experience Jeonju’s cultural heritage, nightscape, and various cultural contents in one place, and Jeonju Daesaseup Festival (June 7-10), which features Pansori, a traditional Korean musical genre.