The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) is keeping Hur Jin-ho‘s “The Assassin(s)” as its opening film, a day after all 109 lawmakers of South Korea’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) asked the festival to pull it.
“The film was selected through SGIFF’s independent curatorial process for its artistic merit and contribution to contemporary Asian cinema,” the festival said.
“The Assassin(s),” which world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was second runner-up for the festival’s international People’s Choice award, will open SGIFF on Oct. 21. Hur is due to attend with cast members Shim Eun-kyung and Park Sung-hoon.
“Exposing the personal details and family relationships of individuals who participated in a project, or exerting pressure on their normal activities, goes far beyond legitimate criticism and can never be justified,” the PGK said.
Lee Jong-bae, a former PPP Seoul city councilor, has asked Seoul police to investigate Hur, Hive Media Corp. CEO Kim Won-kuk and writers Kwon Ki-jun and Lee Ji-min for defamation. PPP lawmakers also tried to summon Hur to testify at the annual parliamentary audit, a move the Democratic Party blocked on creative freedom grounds.
In a Sept. 28 statement, the producers said: “Nowhere in the film is any specific individual defined as being behind the incident, and the film’s hypotheses and dramatic settings are not presented as historical fact.”
“Cinema must carry on as a place where different ideas and voices meet, even when it stirs up debate,” the DGK said. “If that freedom disappears, it becomes hard for new films and new stories to be born.”
