It is a dream come true for filmmakers and actors to receive invitations to the Cannes Film Festival. Whether or not they are established filmmakers and actors, the media and the film world pay a lot of attention to films invited to Cannes, and the director and actors who make them. It is quite an important thing for a short to be invited to the festival. Such invitations pave the way for some talented new directors to establish themselves as feature film directors. Others receive support to grow into auteurs through them.
A perfect example is director
SONG Il-gon. His film
The Picnic won the Grand Jury Prize from the 1999 Cannes Film Festival's short film competition. The film is about a family’s trip to the sea for a family suicide due to their harsh economic situation. Critics heaped praise on the film, saying that it delicately painted a tragedy of when Korea was suffering from a financial meltdown. Since then, SONG has made experimental and unique features such as
Flower Island (2001),
Spider Forest (2004),
Git-Feathers in the Wind (2004) and
The Magician(s) (2005). At the moment, SONG is carrying out his activities by crossing back and forth from commercial films like
Always (2011) to documentaries such as
Dance of Time (2009) and
Forest of Time (2012).
With
The Picnic providing the initial momentum, Cannes has invited two to three Korean shorts almost every year since. About 30 Korean shorts advanced into Cannes from 2001 to last year. Most of them were invited to the Cinéfondation section for graduate works from film academies. Sometimes, they made the lists of films invited to the Directors’ Fortnight and Short Film Competition sections.
SHIN Dong-il is one of the Korean directors who was spotlighted in Cannes after
The Picnic. SHIN’s feature film
Host & Guest (2005) drew a lot of attention at the Berlin, Karlovy Vary and Seattle International Film Festivals. Prior to that, SHIN advanced into the shorts category of the Cannes Film Festival with
The Holy Family in 2001. The director has since been making meaningful works in the lowbudget independent film sector such as
My Friend & His Wife (2008) and
Bandhobi (2009). Director
KIM Young-nam also screened
I Can Fly to You but You...(2001) in the Cinéfoundation section. The film takes a look at the hidden side of the life of a broken couple. The short was invited to Cannes first and later to the 14th Tokyo International Film Festival and more. KIM subsequently made headlines by directing features such as
Don’t Look Back (2006) and
The Boat (2009), a Korea-Japan coproduction starring
HA Jung-woo and Satoshi TSUMABUKI.
The Wings (2004) directed by
SEO Hae-yeong and
Fill In The Blanks (2003) directed by KIM Yun-sung
were screened in the Cinéfondation category and the Directors’ Fortnight, respectively, in the 57th Cannes Film Festival when
PARK Chan-wook’s
Old boy (2003) picked up the Grand Prix. The 57th Cannes displayed a particularly strong interest in Korean films. They invited
Sword in the Moon (2003) directed by KIM Eui-seok
to the Un Certain Regard section and
Woman Is The Future Of Man (2004) directed by
HONG Sangsoo to the competition section. The Cannes Film Festival also gave the history of Korean cinema a very important milestone in 2007. This is because a stellar performance in
LEE Chang-dong’s
Secret Sunshine earned actress
JEON Do-yeon the festival’s Best Actress Prize. But Korean shorts received as much attention as Secret Sunshine. Director
HONG Sung-hoon nabbed the third prize in the Cinéfondation section with A Reunion, where a son meets his father after 16 years. Since then, director HONG has been growing while making shorts such as
Girl (2008),
Fire (2013) and
Um-ma (working title).
My Dear Rosetta (2007) is also worth paying attention to. This is because the film made it to the short film competition section, six years after SHIN Dong-il’s
The Holy Family in 2001.
YANG Hea-hoon later made his presence felt through
Who’s That Knocking at My Door (2007).
Dust Kid directed by
JOUNG Yu-mi hit screens during the Directors’ Fortnight in 2009, when director PARK Chan-wook took home a Special Jury Prize for
Thirst. The fourth work by JOUNG, which is a fantasy and tells a story of a woman who decides to scour every floor and clean every corner in her home, meeting tiny
dust kids at every corner,
Dust Kid drew much attention at various international film festivals.
My Small Doll House (2006) enabled JOUNG to draw many eyes at domestic film festivals such as the
Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival. Her
Dust Kid swept various film festivals such as the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival. Since then, JOUNG has been building her reputation as a world-class filmmaker through
Math Test (2010) and
Love Games. In particular,
Love Games took home the Grand Prix at the 24th Zagreb International Animation Festival. Director
JO Sung-hee is also a director to watch. In 2009, JO claimed the third prize in the Cinéfondation section for
Don‘t Step Out of the House, his graduation work for the
Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). The plot of
Don‘t Step out of the House unfolds when somebody breaks into a semi-basement flat. The film made news at domestic film festivals such as the Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival, the
Seoul Independent Film Festival and the
Jeonju International Film Festival.
Don‘t Step out of the House made JO a newly emerging director. He later entered the commercial film world through
A Werewolf Boy (2012), a melodrama starring
SONG Joong-ki and
PARK Bo-young which drew 6.6 million spectators in Korea. These days, JO is in post-production on his second commercial feature
Phantom Detective.
The following year in 2010, Korean films once again thrived at the Cannes Film Festival. The spotlight turned on Korean films such as
Hahaha (2010) directed by HONG Sangsoo and
Poetry (2010) directed by LEE Chang-dong. The former won the Grand Prize in the Un Certain Regard section while the latter won the Best Screenplay Prize in competition. It was also in 2010 that the Cinéfondation section introduced Frozen Land, a film by
KIM Tae-yong. Numerous film festivals including the Jeonju International Film Festival showed an interest in
Frozen Land, which describes a tragedy where stowaways from China die in droves in a refrigerator car. Since then, KIM has made solid ground as a leading short film director with
My Sad Night (2010),
Negligence of Service (2011),
Night Bug (2012),
Night Market (2012) and
Spring Fever (2013). In 2014, the
Busan International Film Festival invited
Set Me Free to its Vision section for emerging Korean filmmakers. The film is KIM’s first feature and deals with a story based on his own life.
The 64th Cannes Film Festival sent invitation cards to more Korean shorts than ever.
Flight by Night (2011) directed by
SON Tae-gyum received the third prize in the Cinéfoundation section. Directors
LEE Tae-ho and
MOON Byoung-gon flew into Cannes to present
In Front of the House (2011) and
Finis Operis (2011) in the Critics Week section. Meanwhile,
Ghost (2011), directed by Dahci MA, also ran in the competition section.
Here, we should take note of director MOON. After shooting
Finis Operis, about a senior citizen who tries to install a bizarre device on the ceiling on a rainy day, MOON won the Palme d’Or prize in the Short Film Competition section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival with
Safe(2013), which focuses on a college girl working at an illegal change booth. The prize went down in history as the first Palme d’Or in the history of Korean short films.
2014 saw
Breath directed by
KWON Hyun-ju and
Man on the Chair directed
JEONG Da-hee screened in the Cinéfondation section and the Directors’ Fortnight lineup, respectively. Now in 2015, the 68th Cannes Film Festival is about to kick off.
On April 16, the Organizing Committee of the Cannes Film Festival announced nine invited works for the international short film competition, and 18 invited short films in the Cinéfondation section. However, no Korean short film made the list this year.
...NEXT PAGE▶
