Intangible Asset No. 82 (film screening)

Presented by the Chan Centre in partnership with The Cinematheque

What lengths will people go to for their music? How do they discover the tools of self-expression and develop an individual voice? Where does the calling come from? What does it mean to be a musician in modern times?

Australian singer Emma Franz explores these themes through the final stages of friend and colleague Simon Barker’s seven-year search for enigmatic Korean shaman, Kim Seok-Chul. Believing the shaman to be one of the world’s great, though largely unknown and undocumented, improvising musicians, Simon had committed to find and learn from the shaman. Yet despite his official designation as South Korea’s 82nd Intangible Asset, Kim Seok-Chul remained elusive. After seven years of setbacks and obstacles, and with the shaman now in his eighties, Barker’s commitment has intensified and he returns to Korea for a seventeenth time.

"Intangible Asset No. 82″ shows us that art occurs at the intersection of deep knowledge and compassion, where human self-knowledge is at one with the natural world. In a world where tangible assets are constantly being measured and compared, "Intangible Asset No. 82″ gives the viewer a visible demonstration of a musician seeking and achieving transformative oneness. It is indeed a profound and moving film."

Yo-Yo Ma