A Study on Chu Min’s Film Activities After the Liberation

Chu Min, who was active in the film division of KAPF before Korea’s liberation, led the cinema movement as the Secretary-General of the Chosun Film Alliance in Seoul after the liberation. He defected to North Korea at the end of 1946, where he worked in film administration, screenwriting, and film criticism. Following the Korean War, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Chosun Scriptwriting Company(Sinario Changjaksa) and the director of the National Film Studio. As a screenwriter, he authored numerous works, including Jogugui Adeul (1956), Wiheomhan Sungan (1958), and Gireun Hanaida (1958), which were adapted into films. Additionally, in North Korea, starting from the mid-1950s, there was an emphasis on exploring the revolutionary traditions of KAPF in the fields of literature and the arts. During this period, Chu Min, as a prominent figure of KAPF, left behind numerous reflective writings about it. He left valuable testimonies regarding the activities of organizations connected to KAPF filmmakers, such as the Chosun Film and Art Association, Seoul Kino, and Dongbang Kino, as well as about Moving Small Theater(idongsiksohyungkuekjang) and theater movement groups like ‘Megaphone’. However, in 1958, he was purged after being held responsible for the collective political asylum sought by a group of North Korean film students studying in the Soviet Union, and he was never politically rehabilitated.