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Riga (AFP)
South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, world famend for his works steeped in violence but additionally accused of abusing actresses, died Thursday of COVID-19 in Latvia on the age of 59.
Kim Ki-duk has gained worldwide fame for drawing a daring portrayal of utmost violence and human brutality in allegory-rich movies, however he has additionally been accused of misconduct in opposition to actresses.
The director has by no means responded to those accusations.
In 2012, he received the Golden Lion for Greatest Movie on the Venice Movie Competition for “Pieta” or the Silver Bear in Berlin for “Samaria” in 2004.
“Sadly, the unhappy information of Kim Ki-duk’s demise from coronavirus in Latvia is true,” Dita Rietuma, head of the Latvian Nationwide Cinema Heart, informed AFP.
“We all know from individuals with whom he had saved in touch that he died in a hospital in Riga round 1:30 within the morning”, she added, with out with the ability to present additional particulars.
Based on Ms Rietuma, the Korean director was on a personal go to to Latvia and no filming was scheduled there.
– Self-taught –
Based on native media, he deliberate to purchase a property in Latvia and apply for a certificates of residence on this Baltic nation, a member of the euro zone.
Estonian-based producer Artur Veeber informed AFP the 2 are engaged on a brand new challenge and Kim Ki-duk is because of return to Estonia in mid-December for a retrospective on his 60th birthday. The director died 9 days earlier than his birthday.
“I realized yesterday that the scenario was crucial,” he added, referring to the director’s state of well being.
Coming from a modest background, son of a Korean Conflict veteran with violent impulses, Kim Ki-duk had deserted his research on the age of 14 to go to work in a manufacturing unit, a scenario which he defined to him for a very long time. “a deep sense of inferiority”.
After a army service within the Korean Marine Corps and a one-year keep in France, he was self-taught in cinema.
His movies, a lot of which function scenes of violence in opposition to each women and men, or present rapes of ladies, have divided audiences, with some accusing him of misogyny and others praising his creation and portraying him. ‘a social atmosphere not often seen in cinema.
He has directed greater than 20 movies together with “Spring, Summer season, Autumn, Winter … and Spring”, an unusually serene movie that explores the cycle of life by means of the existence of a Buddhist monk.
– “Sexual predator” –
In 2017, an actress who requested anonymity accused him of sexual and bodily abuse whereas filming “Moebius”, claiming that he had slapped her and compelled her to movie nude and sexual scenes. that weren’t within the script.
The prosecution had dismissed the accusations of sexual abuse, citing the dearth of proof. However the filmmaker was fined 5 million received (four,00zero euros) for bodily assault after a process to settle minor circumstances with out going by means of the trial field.
In March 2019, he lodged a grievance in opposition to Womenlink, an influential affiliation for the protection of ladies’s rights in Seoul, which he accused of getting “unfairly stigmatized as a sexual predator”, inflicting him monetary hurt, a few of them its movies having been disadvantaged of distributors in South Korea and overseas for that reason.
In recent times, Kim Ki-duk traveled to Russia and different ex-Soviet nations the place he was engaged on new tasks.
He notably chaired the primary jury of the Moscow Worldwide Movie Competition in 2019 and introduced his newest movie “Dissolve” in Kazakhstan.
Russian movie critic Andrei Plakhov careworn that this “enfant horrible” of Asian cinema was appreciated in Russia for “his ardour and his flippant angle”.
“Kim’s movies are fashionable myths,” he informed Russian newspaper Kommersant. “There’s all the time temptation and redemption. And there’s additionally God who observes tragedy and human comedy,” he added, describing the filmmaker’s universe.
One other Russian critic, Anton Doline, famous on the Meduza information web site that for Europe and the USA, Kim embodied “excessive Asia”.
Russian tv praised his work, stressing that for him there have been “no taboos within the research of human nature”.
© 2020 AFP
