Originally posted July 1, 2009–For being a relatively small country, Korea has a lot of film festivals. Of course, most people have heard of the big three, Pusan, Jeonju and PiFan but I seem to be hearing about a new festival every month–or learning about ones I did not know existed, and I got to wondering just how many film festivals there are in Korea. A quick search on the Korean search engine Naver revealed 95, but a closer inspection showed that was not the actual number. Many of the ones listed were just one-shot events or had folded a few years ago. Some were film awards and others were events held at a certain art theater. However, the list is still quite long. If you are coming to Korea pretty much any time of year, you are likely to be able to attend a film festival. Here is the list of current festivals below. I may have missed some and I have included three others that I am not sure are still running, but it is accurate for the most part.

Seoul Independent Documentary Festival www.sidof.org (usually March. Not held this year?)

International Women’s Festival in Seoul http://wiffis.or.kr (April 9-16)

Jeonju International Film Festival www.jiff.or.kr (April 30-May  8th)

Busan Asian Short Film Festival www.basff.org (May 5-13)

Green Film Festival in Seoul www.gffis.net (May 21-26)

Seoul LGBT Film Festival (aka Korean Queer Film Festival)  www.selff.com (May 30-June 7)

Human Rights Film Festival www.sarangbang.or.kr/hrfilm/ (June 11-14)

Mise-en-Scene’s Genre Film Festival www.msff.or.kr (June 24-30)

Seoul International Film Festival www.senef.net (usually held in June, but not this year)

Seoul International Youth Film Festival www.siyff.com (July 9-15)

Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival www.pifan.com (July 16-26)

Migrant Worker Film Festival www.mwff.or.kr (July 17-19)

Jecheon International Music & Film Festival www.jimff.org (Aug. 13-18)

Busan International Kid’s Film Festival www.biki.or.kr (August 14-18)

Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival www.cindi.or.kr (August 20-26)

Chungmuro International Film Festival www.chiffs.kr (August 24-Sept. 1)

Jeju Film Festival www.jff.or.kr (late August)

Corean Network Film Festival www.cnff.or.kr (late August)

KBS Premiere Picture Festival http://premiere.kbs.co.kr (late August/early Sept)

Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul www.ex-is.org (Sept. 10-16)

Indie Anifest www.ianifest.org (Sept. 17-22)

Persons with Disabilities Film Festival www.pdff.net (Sept. 21-25)

Seoul International Extreme Short Image & Film Festival www.sesiff.org (Sept. 23-27)

Seoul Christianity Film Festival www.sc-ff.org (late Sept.)

EBS International Documentary Festival (late Sept)

Sogang Film Festival www.sgff.net  (late Sept.)

Jeonbuk International Film & Video Festival www.jbiff.or.kr (Oct.)

Pusan International Film Festival www.piff.org (Oct. 8-16)

Korea Youth Film Festival www.kyff.co.kr (Oct. 11-15)

Seoul International Family Film Festival  www.sifff.org (Oct. 28-Nov.3)

Megabox European Movie Festival www.meff.co.kr (late October)

Korea Youth Film Festival www.dima.or.kr (late Oct/early Nov.)

Asiana International Short Film Festival www.aisff.org (Nov. 5-10)

Daejeon Independent Film & Video Festival www.difv.org (mid-Nov)

Daegu Independent Short Film Festival www.diff.or.kr (mid/late Novemeber)

International College Peace Film Festival (late Nov.) –currently has website problems

Pink Film Festival www.pinkfilm.co.kr (November–unclear if this is continuing this year)

Sth Lotte Cinema Art Film Festival (November)

Megabox Japanese Film Festival www.j-meff.co.kr (November)

Made In Busan: Independent Film Festival www.ifmib.org (late Nov/early Dec)

Seoul Independent Film Festival www.siff.or.kr (December)

Gwangju International Film Festival www.giff.org (December)