From historical trauma to emotional healing, multi-layered narratives captivate European arthouse audiences.

Three films invited to the 24th Florence Korean Film Festival

Three Korean independent films have been invited to the 24th Florence Korean Film Festival, running March 19-28 in Italy. Ha Myung-mi's Hanlan and Kim Mi-jo's Gyeongju Trip will compete in the Korean Cinema Today and Korean Horizon sections respectively, while Lee Chang-yeol's Florence joins the Special Screening lineup. Though all three explore themes of loss, healing, trauma, and reconciliation, each takes a distinctly different approach. What makes these films resonate with Europe's largest Korean film festival?

Hanlan chronicles a mother and daughter crossing mountains and seas to survive in 1948 Jeju. Led by powerful performances from Kim Hyang-gi and Kim Min-chae and Ha Myung-mi's meticulous direction, the film has been in extended theatrical release since its November domestic premiere. Critics praise it for "elevating the pain of the Jeju April 3rd Incident into a universal human drama."

Gyeongju Trip follows a mother and daughters embarking on a "killing trip" after eight years of waiting for their youngest, who never returned from a school excursion. Starring Lee Jung-eun, Gong Hyo-jin, Park So-dam, and Lee Yeon, the film held its world premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival last October, where programmers described it as "a work that exquisitely combines dark humor with emotional density."

Florence, starring Kim Min-jong and Yeh Ji-won, is a road movie centered in Florence, Italy, where the protagonist returns to the city where his youthful passion once thrived, experiencing reunion and healing.

As Hawaii festival programmers noted, the strength of these three films—and Korean independent cinema broadly—lies in their "emotional density." The ability to unpack Korea's historical traumas—the Jeju April 3rd Incident, the Sewol Ferry Tragedy—not through grand discourse but through individual emotional arcs, and the capacity to capture the emotional significance embedded in specific places: this is precisely what European arthouse curators recognize as the narrative power of Korean independent cinema.

Korean cinema's presence in Europe, once led by auteurs like Kim Ki-duk, Hong Sang-soo, and Lee Chang-dong, is now expanding into more multi-layered territory. While Netflix conquers global markets through genre accessibility, Korean independent films are earning curator selections through emotional density. Whether these curator-selected works—chosen not by algorithm but by human judgment—can also capture European audiences' hearts will reveal much about the future of Korean independent cinema.

Sources

• Hankook Ilbo, "Kim Hyang-gi's 'Hanlan' receives consecutive invitations to Helsinki and Florence film festivals," 2026.01.21

• Jeju Domin Ilbo, "'Hanlan,' depicting Jeju April 3rd, confirmed for April theatrical release in Japan," 2026.02.02

• Sports Chosun, "[Official] Lee Jung-eun x Gong Hyo-jin x Park So-dam x Lee Yeon's 'Gyeongju Trip' officially invited to Florence Korean Film Festival following Hawaii," 2026.01.20

• SBS News, "Kim Min-jong's 'Florence' receives festival invitation befitting its name…heads to Florence," 2026.01.20