Cinema Concert 1 - Ulrich Kodjo Wendt & Anne Wiemann

Hamburg born Diatonic Accordion player, Ulrich Kodjo Wendt has composed a number of original scores for film since 1995 including two features In July, Short Sharp Shock directed by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Fatih Akin. He also leads a band of four members with whom he acquired fame in diverse fields that spans music for theater, silent film accompaniment and concerts. Anne Wiemann has collaborated with Ulrich Kodjo Wendt on Fatih Akin's In July as well as live performance to silent films such as Alexander Medvedkin's Happiness and Michail Kaufman's In the Spring. As a member of Ulrich Kodjo Wendt Band (UKW Band), she plays a number of instruments including the saxophone and flute.

Happiness

Russia, 1934, 66min, 35mm, b&w, Silent / Comedy Director l Alexander Medvedkin

Happiness is the stylized Russian folk tale about a poor and lazy peasant by the name of Khmyr, who

dreams of becoming a tsar, eating his fill of pork fat and doing nothing (his idea of happiness), and his industrious wife, Anna, who found real happiness on a collective farm after the revolution. The film contains drawn scenery amusingly transplanted into cinema from popular Russian wood prints, ingenious and always purposeful tricks, hilarious scenes of the wanderings around Russia of a scraggly and vicious pilgrim nun, and talented sideshows of “dreams”and “royal repasts”of Khmyr. Considered one of the masters of Russia's revolution generation filmmakers and nicknamed Russia's Chaplin by Eisenstein, Alexander Medvedkin presents the epitomy of comedy and tragedy through over-the-top satire and humor in this film.

Cinema Concert 2

Special Screening of Korea's oldest silent film Turning Point of the Youngsters accompanied by the narration of a movie talker

The oldest existing Korean feature and silent film, Turning Point of the Youngsters has been reborn through the voice of a movie talker. Receiving popular acclaim during the Korean Film Archive reopening ceremony as the opening film this May, this 1934 film will have the chance to meet with a

larger audience at JIMFF Cheongpung Outdoor Theater this year. Orchestrated by director of Family Ties's Kim Tae-yong and narrated by the star of Midnight Ballad of Ghost Theater and Once upon a Time, Cho Hee-bong, this film will be a treat to the eyes and ears of audience. The orchestra and live music which is a key part of a silent film presentation will be conducted by musical and theater music director, Park Chun-hwi. This 1934 piece directed by Ahn Jong-hwa preserves the techniques of the silent film at a time when Korean cinema was in transition from the silent cinema to sound cinema. Accordingly, this performance will truly be an opportunity for the younger generation who have never experienced the sensibilities unique to the silent film era to go back in time.

Turning Point of the Youngsters
Korea, 1934, 70min, Digi-beta, b&w, Silent / Drama Director l Ahn Jong-hwa

Yeong-bok sets off for Seoul, leaving behind his aged mother and younger sister to keep home. He gets a job as a luggage carrier when he meets Kye-soon, a struggling young woman who barely manages to support her sick father and younger brother. After Yeong-bok's mother passes away, his sister, Yeong-ok leaves home in search of Yeong-bok only to become a waitress and to make matters worse, lose her virginity to Gae-cheol. Tragedy also hits Kye-soon who falls prey to Gae-cheol while looking for a job. Eventually learning about Yeong-ok and Kye-soon's misfortune, he goes after Gae-cheol and his gang in pursuit for justice.