New Korean Cinema

The site has been up since Aug 2009. It was set up as a personal space for me to write about Korean cinema after the site I was writing for regularly decided to call it a day. From day one, I’ve had a lot of positive feedback and the site established itself pretty quickly – after a few ups and downs, other contributors started writing reviews and we started to link up with film festivals as media partners, so it’s grown pretty organically.

The interest in Korean cinema has definitely grown since the site began. It does tend to pick up a lot if a big title is released and around film festivals, but it’s growing on the whole.

It’s run in my spare time. Both myself and other contributors fit it in around other work.

What stands us apart is there’s no more than a handful of English language websites which focus strictly on Korean cinema, so while plenty of sites will cover a few titles along with the output from other countries, the site is really very focused while still acknowledging influences from the rest of the world.

The Korean Blogathon, which we ran at the start of 2011 and will make a yearly event, has been the most exciting moment so far. It was setup between the New Korean Cinema website and cineAWESOME! and we weren’t sure of the level of interest that it would generate. After the week was over, we had 150 posts from 50 different websites and the site crashed out on the final day because we were generating so many hits – it was pretty amazing.

More of the same but even better – more festival coverage, more podcast involvement, and another blogathon. For me the secret to a good website is consistency – so many blow themselves out after a year or so – there’s a lot of work involved.

Martin Cleary, founder of New Korean Cinema

Website: newkoreancinema.com