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Fantasia’s 1st Wave Includes 7 from Korea
Mix of Commercial and Indie Favorites Head to Montreal
North America’s top destination for genre cinema, the Fantasia International Film Festival recently unveiled the first wave of its 2019 program, which so far includes seven films from Korea, ranging from box office hits to award-winning indie dramas.
Director LEE Su-jin returns to Montreal, following his Audience Award win there for HAN Gong-ju (2014), with his new thriller Idol, starring SUL Kyung-gu, HAN Suk-kyu and HAN Gong-ju’s CHUN Woo-hee, which debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. LEE Kwon will bring his latest film Door Lock (2018), a remake of the popular Spanish thriller Sleep Tight. The well-reviewed thriller stars KONG Hyo-jin.
Fresh from its midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival will be LEE Won-tae’s second film The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil. Featuring Don LEE (aka MA Dong-seok) this hard-boiled Korean thriller has already drawn over three million admissions at home and scored a US remake deal through Sylvester STALLONE’s production company, which will see LEE reprise his role.
The program also includes the action revenge drama No Mercy with LEE Si-young, and two indies from the Busan International Film Festival, YI Ok-seop’s Maggie (2018) and KIM Bora’s House of Hummingbird (2018), which is in the midst of a sensational award-winning run on the festival circuit.
Also screening will be the animated title The Moon in the Hidden Woods (2018) from director UMEHARA Takahiro, which debuted at last year’s Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF).
The rest of Fantasia’s program will be announced in early July. This year’s edition will take place from July 11 to August 1.
