<The Rainy Season (Jangma)> (1996)

Director : Cho Bum-koo
Year of Production : 1996
Genre : Dramatic Film
Format : 16mm/Color
Running Time : 22 minutes

Crew :
Planning/Screenplay/Director/Editor : Cho Bum-koo
Distribution : Indie Story
Cinematography : Choi Joo-young, Lee Dae-hyuk
Lighting : Park Sang-yong

Cast :
Jeong Woo-hyuk, Park Seong-yeon

Synopsis

It’s the tedious rainy season and Woo-hyeok, who has just finished his required time in the military and is about to return college, meets Seong-yeon who is jobless since he graduated from college. The young men who used to attend college together, talk about their surroundings and their situations in order to escape the tedium of everyday life and their depressed psychological states.

Notes

A personal look at the dark and poetic side of youth. The movie that initiated the trend in personal movies of the latter half of the 1990s. (Kang So-won)
A film that vividly portrays the reality of youths in the 1990s. (Kim Dong-won)

Purpose of Production

Although this is the 3rd film I made, I did not realize that the two previous films would be movies while working on them, so in that sense, it could be said that this is my first real film.
That’s why I considered this film a new beginning and approached it having analyzed the reasons for the failure of my first films, and with deep self-reflection. I made this movie with the purpose of making a short film with well-defined differences from full-length films. Also, I avoided the strict distribution of work which would make the cast and staff work mechanically. To keep the film from becoming too reflective, I purposefully maintained an objective viewpoint with the camera. I avoided too much directing with the camera in order to become closer with the audience. I wanted to show the personal side of my friends and myself by portraying our daily lives without decoration, and wanted to convey our psychology and emotions.

Awards and Showings at Film Festivals

3rd Place at the 22nd Seoul Independent Film Festival
2nd Place at the 14th Busan Asian Short Film Festival, 1997
Officially Shown at Indie Forum 97
2nd Place at the 6th New Face Visual Arts Festival
Shown as part of the 2nd Pusan International Film Festival Wide Angle Category
14th Hanover International Short Film Festival of Germany, Wunden

Director Bio : Cho Bum-koo


The Rainy Season (1996), Sketches of a Journey (eoddun yeohangui kirok) (2000), The Bad Utterences (Yangachi eojo) (2004).