Influenza - Joon-ho Bong, 2004

For the past decade, the Jeonju International Film Festival has been commissioning films from three directors a year, awarding them each 50 million won (USD 38,000) to produce a digital film of around thirty minutes in length. The Jeonju Digital Project offers the possibility of seeing short films by some of the world’s most acclaimed directors, works generally relegated to the film festival ghetto. This film was released in 2004 together with works by Japanese director Iishi Sogo and Hong Kong-based Yu Lik Wai. Bong’s disturbingly humorous mockumentary traces the downward spiral of an unemployed 31 year-old man as he is captured on Seoul’s omnipresent CCTVs and observation cameras. By employing a diversity of techniques - B&W and color, split screen, wide angle, static and panning shots, as well as a liberal dose of black humor - the director keeps the proceedings from becoming monotonous.