Hangul 한국영상자료원 | Hanja 韓國映像資料院 | |
Revised Romanization Han'guk yeongsang jaryowon McCune–Reischauer Han'kuk yǒngsang charyowǒn | ||
The Korean Film Archive or called Korean Federation of Film Archives and KOFA is the sole film archive in South Korea with nationwide coverage. It was founded in Seoul in 1974 as a non-profit organization. In 1976 KOFA joined the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) as an observer, and gained its full membership of FIAF in 1985.
KOFA's main duties are to collect, preserve and categorize films and film-related materials, as well as to foster accessibility to its collections. Most of remaining originals and copies of Korean films are preserved in KOFA. Its main center is in Sangam-dong, Seoul, with two local branch centers in Busan and Bucheon, and a secondary preservation center in Seongnam. Its main center has several public facilities, including Cinematheque KOFA, Korean Film Museum, and a reference library. Recently KOFA has concentrated on digitization of Korean films, and has published several features of the Classic Korean Cinema DVD Collections. It also operates the most reliable online database of Korean films, as well as an online film streaming service.
Functions
KOFA serves three main duties and various kinds of referential access services: