Korean cinema made a big splash at the Shanghai International Film Festival this month, with 22 titles across their program. Most prominent was YOON Ga-eun’s debut feature The World of Us, which was part of the Asian New Talents lineup, where it received two nominations.

 

Following its debut at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, where it screened in the Generations lineup, The World of Us has quickly established itself as a popular festival title, earning invitations to several events and earning two awards from the Zlin Film Festival. In Shanghai it competed in the Best Actress (CHOI Soo-in) and Best Cinematography (MIN Jun-won, KIM Ji-hyun) categories. The World of Us also has been invited to the Tokyo FILMex which takes place in November.

 

21 additional Korean features screened in a Korean film sidebar in Shanghai’s Panorama section. These include some of last year’s biggest commercial titles, such as LEE Joon-ik’s The Throne, JANG Jae-hyun’s The Priests and LEE Seok-hoon’s The Himalayas. The mainstream titles include, KWAK Kyung-taek’s The Classified File, HONG Won-chan’s Office, LEE Hae-young’s The Silenced, PARK Heung-sik’s Memories of the Sword and LOVE, LIES, LEE Ho-jae’s SORI: Voice from the Heart, YUN Jun-hyeong’s FATAL INTUITION and LEE Yoon-ki’s A Man and A Woman.

 

Among the independent titles on show in China this year will be HONG Sang-soo’s Right Now, Wrong Then, JUNG Ji-woo’s Fourth Place and ZHANG Lu’s Love and….

 

This year’s Shanghai International Film Festival took place over June 11th to 19th.