A record number of people attended the Fourth Arab Film Festival in Korea, The Korea Times reported.
This year's festival was held from June 4-10 in Seoul and Busan with some 8,000 people attending, representing a 34-percent increase in the number of participants in Seoul and a 30-percent jump in Busan. All 26 screenings were sold out.
"We were very concerned about the timing because the screenings came when the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak was reaching its peak,"C hung Yong-chill, secretary general of the Korea-Arab Society (KAS), told The Korea Times on Sunday.
"We are excited because many Koreans showed up despite the concern," Chung said. Chung, former Korean ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), attributed the success of the film festival to the Korean public's "hunger for Arab culture," considering the lack of opportunities to appreciate it.
Director Ali F. Mostafa's "From A to B" opened the festival,and the UAE director had a chance to meet Korean fans in Seoul and Busan during open talks. He was quoted as saying that he was impressed by their deep interest and knowledge of arab culture.
Yemeni filmmaker Khadija Al-Salami's film "I am Nojom, Age 10 and Divorced," was one of the most popular films during the festival. The 2014 movie described the ordeal and rugged life of a 10-year-old girl who was forced to marry a 30-year-old man and suffered severe domestic violence and then divorced at the age of 11.
"Korean audiences who watched the Arab movies seemed to believe that although the circumstances and culture are different, they were able to find some commonalities with people described in the movies and this kind of have some sympathy toward them," a KAS official said.
"Average Korean people would have a negative image of the Arab countries because the Western media have mostly focused on the rise of terrorism or conflicts in the region," he said. According to Chung, the film festival has played a role to help Koreans better understand the Arab culture.
"The film festival has provided a unique opportunity for Koreans to have a sneak peek into the lifestyle, family relations, and what people in the region care about, things like that. And many Korean audiences find that people in Arab countries are not so different from us."
