On John Miller’s ‘the Korean film industry’ : The Asia foundation, KMPCA, and Korean cinema, 1956

John Miller, former Hollywood producer and The Asia Foundation’s special motion picture officer in Tokyo, spent six months in Korea in 1956. His mission, as a motion picture advisor, was to assist the newly launched Korean Motion Picture Cultural Association (KMPCA). Upon completion of his duty in Korea, Miller composed an exhaustive project report entitled ‘The Korean Film Industry’. It was, as Miller himself wrote, ‘the first study of its kind…made by either a Korean or a foreigner’. This significant historical record has been forgotten since then. Thanks to The Asia Foundation headquarters’ permission, however, Miller’s valuable report is finally available to interested readers, students and scholars in the field of Korean cinema.