The International Competition section of the JEONJU International Film Festival features ten films selected from the works of those directors who directed their first or second films, which will be screened for the first time in Asia, through a preliminary review by five jury members from Korea and abroad. This year, the festival received 747 films submitted from 81 countries, which is the highest number ever, with an increase of 143, compared to the 604 films submitted at the 24th festival. A predominant feature of the overall trend is that the large number of films made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even films planned to be made beforehand had to extend their production period due to the pandemic, and many works highlighted the limitations of the production environments, such as smaller cast numbers and minimal locations. However, we pay our respects to all those directors who submitted their films to the festival, for their efforts in viewing and expressing the world through their own visual language, despite such difficult circumstances.
Taiwanese director LO Yi-Shan’s feature debut film, After the Snowmelt, is a documentary beginning with the death of the director’s friend, Chun, during a trekking trip to Nepal. To keep a promise to her friend, the director goes to Nepal and follows Chun’s trail, reminiscing about her experiences with Chun and showing how their individual journeys overlapped. KIX, another documentary, follows an eight-year-old boy, Sanyi, who was recruited by two young Hungarian directors through street casting, over a period of nearly ten years. The boy’s coming-of-age story is captured through intense images, showing him as a reckless street boy, to him getting a girlfriend, and finally ending up in a court after causing a man’s death during a ridiculous accident.
More coming-of-age films can be found among the feature films. Junkyard Dog, the feature film debut from French actor and director, Jean-Baptiste DURAND, depicts the friendship and growth of two friends living in a small village in the south of France. Mirales ridicules his friend Dog for no good reason, mischievously disparaging him, but their friendship continues in a precarious manner. When a woman called Elsa arrives in their village and Dog falls in love with her, it causes a rift in the duo’s friendship. The directing skill is hard to believe for a debut director, and the performance by actor, Raphaël QUENARD, who also starred as a lead character in Yannick, which is to be introduced in the Frontline section, are remarkable. Ingrid POKROPEK from Argentina, the producer of Trenque Lauquen (2022), which was screened in the World Cinema section last year, returns to Jeonju as the director of her debut feature film, The Major Tones. Fourteen-year-old Ana, who lives with her father, has had a metal plate in her arm since an accident when she was young, and she detects strange metallic signals and transcribes them into musical scores. Then, she determines that the signals are actually a message like Morse code, and tries to unlock the secret. This film is a girl’s fantastic coming-of-age story, featuring music, secret messages and winter days. Practice, the debut film from Norwegian director, Laurens PÉROL, tells the story of Trine, an eighteen-year-old climate activist and talented trumpet player. Trine is invited to a trumpet audition at Oslo Opera House, but she has to travel over 1,500 kilometers from her home in the remote Lofoten Islands to the capital city of Oslo. Refusing to travel by plane in order to stick to her principles, Trine hitchhikes to Oslo, but her passion for music and environmental idealism are tested during this wild journey. My Endless Numbered Days, the directorial debut film from former Singaporean cinematographer, Shaun NEO, follows Mitsue, a Japanese woman who leaves her native Hokkaido for Singapore in search of a more meaningful life, but returns to Japan without achieving her goal. Actress, Banzai Mitsue, gives a mesmerizing performance as Mitsue, who is forced to confront her past, which she has been avoiding.
Two films by Ukrainian directors are also noteworthy. Oxygen Station, the second film from Ivan TYMCHENKO, known as the director of Beshoot (2019), is a story about a group of Tatars from the Crimea, who were oppressed, discriminated against and made political prisoners, therefore unable to return to their homeland under Soviet rule in 1980. The Tatars were able to return to their home after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but were driven out when Russia reoccupied Crimea in 2014. This film is a reminder of Russia’s atrocities through history. La Palisiada, the debut film from Philip SOTNYCHENKO, follows two friends, one a detective and the other a forensic psychiatrist, who investigate a murder case that happened five months before the death penalty was abolished in Ukraine in 1996. This film effectively explores the savagery of violence perpetrated by the state, and the sense of alienation that fills the daily lives of the two investigators through documentary-like images.
Also, Vietnamese director PHAM Ngoc Lan’s debut film, Cu Li Never Cries, deals with the frustrating summer days in the life of Lady M, a retired worker who once worked in East Germany as an exported laborer, through immersive black-and-white images and poetic directing. The Permanent Picture, the debut film from Spanish director, Laura FERRÉS, begins with a teenage girl named Antonia abandoning her baby in the middle of the night in a rural village in southern Spain. It shows exceptional imagination by combining familiar melodrama and an exploration of cinematic language. Both films have received favorable reviews at several international film festivals.
Programmer CHUN Jinsu
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