'Hwaseong Village Film Festival' Opens September 5 at Closed Seoshin Elementary School Jebu Branch Campus
Hwaseong Special City (Mayor Jung Myung-geun) announced that the "3rd Hwaseong Village Film Festival" will be held from September 5 to 6 at the playground of Jebu Branch Campus of Seoshin Elementary School on Jebu Island, where citizens' everyday spaces become a movie theater and ordinary citizens become the protagonists.
The Hwaseong Village Film Festival began in 2024 to reflect on the values of people, relationships, and community that are easily forgotten as a city grows, through film.
This year's festival transforms the playground of Seoshin Elementary School's Jebu Branch Campus, which closed due to declining student enrollment, into a village cinema where island residents and tourists can enjoy films together under the stars. With the theme "Island-Seeing Village Cinema," the festival aims to view the familiar Jebu Island anew through the lens of film, and to fill previously empty spaces with people and stories.
Ten films will be screened in total, including citizen-produced films made directly by Hwaseong's youth, adolescents, and activists, as well as invited external works selected by citizen programmers. Along with film screenings, experiential booths will be operated for citizen participation, and a director-audience dialogue session (G.V.) has been arranged.
Since March, preparations for the film festival have been made through collaboration between Hwaseong City, the Gyeonggi Content Agency, Gyeonggi Hwaseong-Osan Office of Education, Hwaseong Sustainable Development Council, Seoshin-myeon Residents' Autonomous Committee, and Jebu-ri Village Association, centered around Glocal Content Exchange, a citizen organization.
The festival is open to all citizens to participate freely. Particularly this year, it is linked with Hwaseong City's City Tour "Kindness Travel One Day" (Sunset and One Day Course) so that visitors can enjoy both the film festival and local tourism together. On September 5, visitors can tour the Songsan Grape Festival during the day and watch films on Jebu Island in the evening.