Seoul searching (Korean Cinema @ AGNSW)

Sydney is not known as a destination for cinephiles. It doesn't have Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Toronto's Cinematheque, Paris's repertory cinemas, Austin's Alamo Drafthouse or even the 20 or so independent arthouse screens of my hometown, Lyon, a city five times Sydney's size.

In fact, if you ignore the city's film festivals, Sydney is a shockingly free of truly independent cinemas. Nor does it have a cinematheque or a proper repertory cinema. Meanwhile Australia's Dark Ages internet infrastructure makes serious sourcing of films online (or VOD) practically impossible. Four and a half million residents could be forgiven for thinking the most challenging, thought-provoking arthouse cinema out there is Slumdog Millionnaire.

I'm exagerating slightly, and there are signs here and there of tiny groups of avid film watchers federating themselves around a venue (rarely a cinema) or a genre (too often b-grade cult films). By and large though, screen culture is not a priority here, whether in education, in the media or in the government's cultural policy. 

The debate - and the whining - tends to focus more on growing a film industry than foestering a film culture, and that focus informs a lot of the initiatives being mulled over in production, distribution and exhibition. Film is not art, the local consensus claims, but commerce - and therefore it is treated as such: sink or swim, and in a time of crisis, don't go in the water.

The resulting landscape reflects this state of affairs. Those in the business of making, distributing or showing films are taking very few risks. This is left to those who work in the arts, where protectionism, public subsidy and education are not yet bad words - and we are very lucky that a few of them have more than a passing interest in good world cinema. 

The Art Gallery of NSW have been running free screenings for a while in their impressive basement cinema - which must seat something close of 300 and is often full. The program is designed to complement current exhibitions. 

Running alongside the Korean Dreams exhibition (paintings and screens of the Joseon Dynasty) is a kick-ass series of Korean films, some of which we wouldn't have had a chance to see in the cinema previously. Screenings take place Wednesdays 2pm & 7.15pm and Sundays at 2pm, between 11 March - 7 June 2009, and all are free to attend.

Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring should be familiar to most (if not, now's your chance!). More exciting, perhaps, are the filmmaker' earlier films, some of which are personal favourites. Kim's 3-Iron is a poetic and violent love story, while his Samaritan Girl is a polarizing existential guilt-trip which charts a girl and her father's quest for spiritual entightenment in a morally bankrupt landscape. Directed with confidence and an uncanny eye for malaise, the latter is a disturbingly beautiful coming-of-age film which will leave many unsettled.

Bong Joon-ho's entertaining The Host is a political allegory, a moving family drama, a devious dark comedy and a kick-ass creature feature rolled into one. It screens alongside his Memories of Murder, a unique police procedural more interested in process than result. A third black comedy completes this vitriolic examiniation of contemporary Korean society and politics, Im Sang-soo's gleefully violent The President's Last Bang.

The one you should not miss under any circumstance is Im Sang-soo's earlier film, A Good Lawyer's Wife. This violent, erotic drama took my breath away when I first saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival a few years back, and has been haunting me ever since. Watch it if you haven't been shocked or surprised at the cinema for a while, and because everyone needs to see the gorgeous and gifted Moon So-ri on screen at least once, and this is perhaps her best performance.

Fans of Park Chan-wook (Old Boy) can catch his break-out hit JSA: Joint Security Area, and there's another chance to catch the acclaimed Oasis, which charts the romance between a mentally challenged young man and a woman suffering from severe cerebral palsy. 

Also screening are Kim Dae-sung's Blood Rain, a violent period whodunnit and Park Chan-ok's relationship drama Jealousy is my Middle Name. Lee Jeong-hyang's The Way Home, meanwhile, is character piece about the relationship between a spoiled 7 year-old and his deaf grandmother.

It's not often Sydneysiders get treated to curated programs of little-seen world cinema, make sure you check it out: it won't even cost you a won. Screenings start tomorrow and you can get the full program here. 

Seoul searching (Korean Cinema @ AGNSW)