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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 12:38 a.m., Monday, July 9, 2007

ACM partners again with Korean Film Council

Advertiser Staff

The National Korean Film Council (KOFIC) is again partnering with the Academy for Creative Media (ACM) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa for its second international Filmmaker's Development Lab Aug. 26-Sept. 2 in Makaha. This year's lab includes a $40,000 award for the top script.

Five emerging filmmakers of Korean descent — Nathan Adolfson, Christina Choe, Jeyun Choi, Samuel Kiehoon Lee and Gene Rhee — have been selected to become fellows from their submitted scripts through an international competition. All have already produced films that have won multiple awards at festivals and have been nationally televised.

They will be matched with individual mentors drawn from the film industry in Korea and the United States and spend a week in Makaha in one-on-one sessions developing their scripts through the Lab. The fellows will present their projects to producers, financiers and production companies at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York in September, and at the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea, in October.

Lab mentors also plan to present an ACM Master Class on the Korean Film Industry which will be free and open to the public on Aug. 31 at 2:30 p.m. in Crawford Hall on the Manoa Campus. In addition, they will be visiting with the Waianae High School Seariders Production Program, ACM's primary partner in media education development in island schools.

Mentors for the 2007 lab include Korean producers Jonathan Kim ("Silmido," "Lies") and Jooick Lee ("Battle of Wits," "Seven Swords,"); U.S. Producer Peggy Rajski ("Home for the Holidays," The Grifters,"); talent agency head Brant Rose; and American Film Institute Senior Lecturer Barry Sabbath. Kim and Sabbath are returning mentors from the first Filmmaker's Development Lab.