Kim Ki-duk(1960-2020)

In 2017/18 he was at the center of a #MeToo scandal after an actress he had been working with filed a sexual assault case against him. The case was partially dismissed for lack of physical evidence and he got away with a modest fine. But more evidence of his violence towards women surfaced later the same year when three actresses made new accusations on investigative news show "PD's Notebook," which was broadcast on Korean public broadcaster MBC. His career in South Korea effectively ended at that point. The Latvian news portal Delfi said Kim arrived in Latvia in November 2020 with the intention of buying a house and applying for alien residency status. Edith Sepp, CEO of the Estonian Film Institute, told that Kim approached the organization in September, keen to submit a new film entitled "Rain, Snow, Cloud and Fog," a co-production between Korea and Estonia that would have shot in the latter. Though he was late with the application, the director intended to apply again in January 2021. Kim Ki-duk died of coronavirus in a hospital in the Latvian capital of Riga on December 11, 2020. [Variety].

[on his film Moebius (2013)] We are not free from physical desire for our entire life. And because of it, we either self-torture, maltreat or become maltreated. And in the middle of all this lies our genitals. The question 'what is a genital? is the initiating point of this film. The film is personal to me in a way. For instance, in the film the character experiences orgasm by rubbing a rough stone against his skin. During my military service I had severe athlete's foot, and had rubbed the skin with a stone until it bled. It was painful, but at the same time I felt a strange pleasure from it and, just like in the film, I felt an awful pain after it. I realized that our entire body is a sexual organ...I consider 'Moebius' as a penis journey.