What is cinema? What does the theater mean to us? The omnibus film Time of Cinema, composed of two shorts, explores diverse ways in which films, theaters, and audiences form relationships. Director Lee Jongpil’s Chimpanzee uses anecdotes about chimpanzees as a medium to transcend, in a surreal manner, the boundaries between inside and outside the film, between audience and creator. A line from the film—“What remains are not the stories, but the times we shared”—captures its essence more precisely than any description could. Director Yoon Ga-eun’s Naturally observes a film set where children are the protagonists. “Can you act in front of the camera as if it were not there?” When asked, the children respond with a flurry of answers. Their earnest discussions about how reality differs from the screen leave audiences with unexpected questions to ponder. This is a modest yet profound work of meta-cinema that captures not simply the theater as a place, but the flow of time exchanged between film and audience.
