Ashes in the Thicket

Aksim is a monkey that finds blending in with other monkeys tricky, until one day, the spirit of Chun Ja – a human girl – enters his mind and creates a divide which puts Aksim on a path of no return.

In the grasslands of Central Asia, a brother and sister, Kai and Shamui are running through a snow-covered mountain and being chased by wolves. Suddenly, they get swept away by a massive avalanche and only Kai gets rescued by their mother and the tribe. Shamui is lost in the icy lake of the notorious Snow Queen, Hattan.

After losing her family to fox hunters, five-tailed Yobi lives in the forest with some shipwrecked aliens, far away from the humans. When one of her alien friends gets captured by a villager, Yobi has no choice but to adventure into the human world to rescue him. At the village, Yobi meets many humans, including Geum Yee who studies at a school for maladjusted children. Interested in Geum Yee, Yobi joins the students and revels in the fun of human life, but both a fox hunter and a mysterious shadow man are on her trail.

Princess Aya of the Sabi Kingdom has a curse that transforms her into wild animals. The only thing that can stop the morphing is her mother’s priceless amulet. When her home comes under siege, her father the King creates an alliance with the Kingdom of Vatar by marrying Aya off to Prince Bari. En route to Vatar, her convoy is attacked by a magical beast and Aya’s amulet is stolen. The Princess must try with all her might to both conceal her secret and to find out who wants to stop the union of Kingdoms.

Six animated shorts about discrimination and being different. “Daydream” talks about dealing with people with disability. It homes in on the daily life of a father with a daughter whose hands and feet are deformed. “Animal Farm” relies on the rough-and-ready feel of stop-motion clay animation to create a satire of bullying and mob dynamics. “At Her House” paints a devastating picture of gender inequality within a marriage. “Flesh and Bone” gently pillories superficiality and the obsession with outward appearance. “Bicycle Trip” focuses on the discrimination experienced by foreign workers in Korea. “Be a Human Being” looks at the way young Koreans are barely treated as human beings before they get to university.

This atmospheric drama follows photographer Min-woo, who enters into a torrid affair with a now-married ex-girlfriend, although he is distracted by a building obsession with the tormented ghost of the young woman who used to live in his apartment.

Kim Nam-woo struggles through life as people around him constantly leave him; his best friend, Jun-ho, is going to study in Seoul and in some ways his widowed mother is "leaving" him too by paying more attention to her new boyfriend. To escape, he goes to a dream world, where he meets a girl named Mari. The story follows Nam-woo in discovering himself and maturing.