[Apr 17] SMLC Research Seminar: Memory Across Borders: Zhang Lu's Cinematic Journey into Transnational Memory

Date: 17 APR 2024 (WED)

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Venue: CPD-2.58, 2/F Centennial Campus, HKU

Speaker: Dr. So Hye Kim

Korea Foundation Visiting Lecturer | Korean Studies Programme, HKU

Discussant: Dr. Sangjoon Lee 

Associate Professor | School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

Director, Asian Cinema Research Lab (ACR Lab)

Abstract: Zhang Lu (born 1962) is among the most emblematic diaspora filmmakers in South Korea in recent decades. In his earlier films, Zhang portrayed ethnic Koreans across China, Korea, and Mongolia who are pushed by inexorable forces to the peripheries and boundaries between nation-states. From 2012 to 2019, Zhang predominantly set his films in South Korea, his ancestral homeland to which he had relocated from his home in China. This talk examines how Zhang Lu’s films navigate the formation of national culture in the homeland, uncovering new forms of transnational practices through cinematic imagination and spectatorial experience in the process. A specific focus is placed on Zhang’s articulation of his own diasporic history and its relation to the collective memories of South Korea, along with the internalized notion of borders, from the physical border between the nation-states toward the metaphorical boundaries between individuals and their memories. The talk demonstrates how the audience’s temporal experience of cinematic texts is intensely interwoven with the director’s memory.

Speaker's Bio: So Hye Kim is the 2023–25 Korea Foundation Visiting Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Holding a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, she has experience as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University and a research professor at Korea University. Kim specializes in Korean and East Asian diaspora films, particularly transnational East Asian cinema and independent film movements. Her research explores cinematic interactions within East Asia, specifically focusing on Korean diaspora films in the post-Cold War era.

All are welcome. No registration is required.

For enquiries, please contact us at smlc@hku.hk