This year’s Indieforum, or Independent Film & Video Makers Forum, will start its five-day run at the Indie Art Space and the Seoul Art Cinema in central Seoul on Thursday.

Along with the screening of 24 movies chosen from 813 submissions, exhibitions, including “Place, Ghost, Spot” that looks at history of a place, and “Roaming Subjects of Cinema” that focuses on the state of independent movies today will be shown at the 24th edition of the country’s oldest indie film festival.

“Graeae: A Stationed Idea” by director Jeong Yeo-reum and “Origami Tutorial” by director Choi Hee-hyun will officially open the festival with actor Choi Hee-seo as the moderator.

Movies in the lineup include “People in Elancia” by director Park Yun-jin, which looks into why some users still play Nexon’s 20-year-old game “Elancia,” and “Flag, Blue Sky, Party” by director Jang Yun-mi, which tells the story of a KEC labor union.

Amid the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, the forum “Post era, independent movie’s autopoiesis” has been organized to provide a perspective about the changing forms and content of independent movies. Director Han Ka-ram of “Our Body” and director Kim Nam-suk of “12 and 24” are among the creators, movie critics, editors and researchers participating in the forum.

The annual Indieforum did not take place last year, due to fallout from Indieforum 2018 when Lee-Song Hee-il, one of the directors participating in the forum, was accused of sexually harassing another director.

This year’s festival is being run jointly by the screenwriters of Indieforum. Also, there will be no volunteer staff this year and all of those working at the festival will be paid. The festival is also paying screening fees for all participating films.

The organizers said that although the size of the festival is small due to COVID-19, by enforcing the strict sanitization of theaters and social distancing, the festival will try to be an exemplary case of a “safe movie festival.”

Details about the festival as well as tickets are available on the Indieforum 2020 website at www.indieforum.co.kr.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)