Visitors
Hong Sang-Soo’s Lost in the Mountains (South Korea, 32min) the visitor is the supremely self-centred Mi-Sook, who drives to Jeonju on impulse to see her classmate Jin-Young – only to discover that her friend is having an affair with their married professor, who Mi-Sook once dated herself. The level of social embarrassment goes off the scale. In Naomi Kawase’s Koma (Japan, 34min), Kang Jun-Il travels to a village in rural Japan to honour his grandfather’s dying wish by returning a Buddhist scroll to its ancestral home. Amid ancient superstitions, a new relationship forms. And in Lav Diaz’ Butterflies Have No Memories (Philippines, 42min) ‘homecoming queen’ Carol returns to the economically depressed former mining town she came from – and becomes the target of an absurd kidnapping plot hatched by resentful locals. Serving as his own writer, cameraman and editor, Diaz casts the film entirely from members of his crew and delivers a well-seasoned mix of social realism and fantasy. —bfi
Casts & Crew
Dante Perez
Kristine Kintana
Joel Ferrer
Willy Fernandez
Lois Goff
Edward Porta
Jung Yu-mi
Also Directed by Naomi Kawase
Toru revisits the astronomical observatory in his old school for the first time in 15 years. He finds a notebook in the room that remained unchanged and frozen in time. "Thanks for watching me." It was a message from Shinya, a member of the school dance club, who he had feelings for.
Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family.
In the film Koma, Kawase explores the relationship between fragile and often tense history between Korea and Japan through the relationship that develops between a third generation Korean-Japanese man, who unexpectedly visits the small and quiet village of Koma, and a Japanese woman, a somewhat mysterious inhabitant of the village.
Naomi Kawase observes people in the city of Shibuya with curiosity and openness, drawing parallels between life and filmmaking and discovering her abilities as a filmmaker.
Kazuo Nishii, renowned editor and photography critic, died in 2001 of stomach cancer. Two months earlier he contacted Naomi Kawase, whose works he admired, to document the remaining weeks of his life. Kawase visits him in the hospital and films the progression of his sickness and the conversations between the two.
In the follow-up to Embracing (1992), Naomi Kawase learns of her father's death and struggles with her loneliness and the feeling of having been abandoned by her parents.
Naomi Kawase returns to the mountains of her feature film Suzaku and portraits the people that inspired the movie.
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who pretends to be the child's biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.
From a vast record of 750 days, 5000 hours, Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 SIDE A and SIDE B are the official documentaries by Naomi Kawase capturing not only the athletes gathered from all over the world, but also their families, people involved in the Games, volunteers, medical personnel, and protesters shouting for the cancellation of the Olympics.
A diary film about Kawase's relationship with her Grandma and the search for her Father, whom she has not seen since her parents divorced during her early childhood.
Also Directed by Hong Sang-soo
Sang-Joon is a professor in the film department at a provincial university. He goes to Seoul to meet his senior, Young-Ho, who works as a film critic. Sang-Joon stays in a northern village in Seoul for 3 days.
A love story between a middle aged professor, a young female student who prepares a movie and a student/filmmaker who drinks too much.
Haewon, a college student, wants to end her secret affair with her professor, Seongjun. Feeling depressed after bidding farewell to her mother who is set to immigrate to Canada the next day, Haewon seeks out Seongjun again after a long time. That day, they run into her classmates at a restaurant and their relationship gets revealed. Haewon gets more agitated and Seongjun makes an extreme suggestion to run away together… Haewon dreams often. Her dreams will be compared to her waking life, but none can be denied as being a part of her life.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends on the outskirts of Seoul. They make friendly conversation, as always, but there are different currents flowing independently of each other, both above and below the surface.
An actress wanders around a seaside town, pondering her relationship with a married man.
A three-tiered story centered on a trio of French tourists visiting the same seaside resort.
Actor Gyung-soo is passed over for a part and decides to leave Seoul and visit a friend. His friend tells him the legend of the "Turning Gate," which foreshadows future events. During his visit, Gyung-soo meets Myung-sook, a girl who quickly falls for him. After a night of passion, he boards the train back for Seoul and meets a married woman who claims to know him. Gyung-soo thinks he may be in love with her, but perhaps he's chosen the wrong woman.
New film from Hong Sang-soo.
Hong Sangsoo's short film made for the 59th edition of the New York Film Festival.
Also Directed by Lav Diaz
A man is wrongly jailed for murder while the real killer roams free. The murderer is an intellectual frustrated with his country’s never-ending cycle of betrayal and apathy. The convict is a simple man who finds life in prison more tolerable, when something mysterious and strange starts happening to him.
Erwin Romulo, the late Alexis Tioseco’s best friend, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend’s untimely death in their home in Quezon City. Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable.
A wandering peddler separates from his fellow salesman and becomes involved with criminals in the jungle.
A terribly cool, hip youth film that throws awareness to the winds of MTV rock and roll, and post Generation- X teenage wasteland fantasies.
Deliberately structured and less beholden to its narrative, the film is told in three parts, with each part pertaining to each of the three visits of the time-travelling visitor from when the country was fighting for independence from Spain.
The boy has something to do in his life, he trains himself and makes plans. Then there is a knock on the door and something pulls away and he literally stays in the rain. Lightning and thunder patter the water, devouring everything. Incredulous, the boy looks up to heaven - is this his destiny?
A lowly farmer whose wife is afflicted with a lingering illness gets involved in kidnapping that goes awry and culminates in tragedy. Years later, he turns to a crusading lady journalist to confess the details of the sensational crime that remains unsolved.
After spending the last 30 years in prison, Horacia is immediately released when someone else confessed to the crime. Still overwhelmed by her new freedom, she comes to the painful realization that her aristocratic former lover had set her up. As kidnappings targeting the wealthy begin to proliferate, Horacia sees the opportunity to plot her revenge.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
This is a Filipino omnibus film about three different journeys.