Produced in 1936, Sweet Dream is an early ‘talkie’ film that the Korean Federation of Film Archives released to the public after discovering it at the China Film Archive in 2006. The following year in 2007, it became a registered cultural property. But up until then, this film wasn’t really considered by researchers of Korean cinema history—there was no room for Sweet Dream on the list of films made by the ‘fathers’ of Korean cinema such as NA Yoonkyu or LEE Kyuhwan. In other words, the discovery of Sweet Dream and presentation for audiences in the 21st century was unexpected and purely coincidental. Unlike the so-called major films of Korean cinema during the colonial period, Sweet Dream has a female central character called Ae-soon, who abandons her family and home to pursue free love and consumption culture. In return, she gets severely punished in the later part of the film. In this, the film isn’t that different from the typical narratives that punish women from deviating from patriarchal Korean society. Aesoon glancing upon the department store, hotel, and theaters demonstrates the desire and curiosity of women back then - but at the same time, she is surrounded by two to three layers of other people’s judgemental glances and condemnation. The fight between such glances in and out of theaters and up and down the screen may be one of the important ways to define the history of Korean cinema later on. The unexpected encounter with Sweet Dream has become the starting point to re-evaluate male-dominated Korean cinema history and within it the roles of women, the stories about women, and the films for women. [SOHN Irhe]

This film is free screening. (No English subtitles provided.)
Tickets are given at the box office on the same day of the screening on a first-come, first-served basis.