Yoo Ahin Awarded Best Actor for Acclaimed Black Comedy in Canada 

Voice of Silence (2020), the acclaimed debut film of director Hong Euijeong, has triumphed at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, where it picked up two awards. The black comedy earned the Best Film Award in the main Cheval Noir competition, as well as the Best Actor prize for Yoo Ahin.

Starring Yoo Ahin and Yu Jaemyeong as illegal crime scene cleaners who wind up taking care of a young kidnapped girl, Voice of Silence debuted on Korean screens last October and was immediately embraced by critics and viewers. The film earned the Best New Director Award and Best Actors Award, also for Yoo, at this year’s Blue Dragon Film Awards, and has been invited to several international film events, including the Fribourg International Film Festival and the Udine Far East Film Festival.

The project’s roots stretch back to 2016 when it was selected as a project for the Biennale College Cinema program at the Venice International Film Festival.

Through a statement, Fantasia’s Cheval Noir jury related that “in a film festival that’s known as a melting pot of genres, Voice of Silence feels like an excellent representative for the top prize in the Cheval Noir section. It’s earnest and sincere in tone but also unpredictable and experimental, impossible to pin down, and truly idiosyncratic.”

This year’s 25th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which took place from August 5 to 25, screened a total of 24 features and shorts from South Korea.