“The 2016 Korean Cinema Week in Geneva”

Ambassador Choi Kyonglim,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to be with you tonight for the opening of the “2016 Korean Cinema Week in Geneva”. This evening marks the second edition of a biennial event that I hope will become a tradition here at the Palais des Nations. Allow me to sincerely thank the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea and Ambassador Choi Kyonglim for organizing this event and for Korea’s repeated contributions to our Cultural Activities Programme.

At its best, film draws on universal emotions to place us in someone else’s shoes, allowing us to empathize with another’s perspective and imagine the world differently. The silver screen defies distance, time and language to bring us all together around a common – human – experience. In recent years, Korean films, television and music have lived up to this ideal, winning hearts and minds worldwide and enriching our understanding of Korean culture and history.

Tonight, we have the pleasure of watching “The Face Reader”, a critically-acclaimed, box office hit from 2013. Although set in the distant fifteenth-century, the film’s protagonist faces a dilemma that is sadly all too relevant in our time: balancing survival and morality in a period of political strife and conflict. In the second decade of the 21st century, far too many lives are threatened by arbitrary violence. The World Bank estimates that two billion people now live in countries where development is affected by fragility, conflict and violence. In 2014, the estimated economic cost of conflict around the world was over 14 trillion US dollars, more than the gross domestic product of the Eurozone countries that year.

To confront these realities, the international community is coming together to address the root causes of violence and instability. The Sustainable Development Goals in their holistic approach and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism in its focus on prevention are just two examples of this new strategy. Culture has a vital role to play in facilitating this effort as a vehicle for communication and a means for bridging differences.

The Republic of Korea is an active contributor to the international effort to tackle violence, instability and weak institutions. Over 600 soldiers from the Republic of Korea are currently engaged in peacekeeping missions around the world and its government is a prominent voice in the Human Rights Council and a sustained source of humanitarian aid. As we face the challenges of this new century together, I know that we can count on the Republic of Korea to continue to help make this planet safer for future generations.

Thank you very much.