Edited excerpts:
Your debut film Farewell to the Duman River released in 1962. I followed them to Seoul just to make a living. Written by Pooja Khati
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Published:November 30, 2016 8:00 am

Kwon-Taek bagged the Lifetime Achievement Award at the just-concluded 47th International Film Festival of India in Goa. Did you always want to be a filmmaker? During the time of the Japanese colonisation, I wanted to make a film with the anger derived from deep frustrations. In an email interview, the 80-year-old talks about his journey so far and what he thinks of Bollywood. I never thought about becoming a filmmaker because I grew up in a small town with not even a single cinema around, and had no chance of seeing a film. When I was 18, right after the Korean War, I managed to meet a couple of people in Busan who wanted to make films. The winner of the Honorary Golden Berlin Bear (2005) and the maker of films such as Farewell to the Duman River (1962) and Chwi-hwa-seon (2002), which won him the best director award at Cannes, Kwon-Taek bagged the Lifetime Achievement Award at the just-concluded 47th International Film Festival of India in Goa. But eventually, Farewell to the Duman River turned out to be an entertaining action film in disguise of independence movements. What was the inspiration behind your debut project, which is about a group of university students during the Japanese invasion of South Korea? With a career spanning over six decades, South Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek is one of the most prominent filmmakers from the country.