in water

mul-an-e-seo

64th TIFF: Greek Premiere
Hong Sang-Soo’s minimalist cinema feels like water from the spring: it is clear, gurgling, clean, and vital, lightly and effortlessly quenching the deepest human anxieties. In his latest film (his 29th feature!), the prolific filmmaker draws his inspiration and methodology from this natural element and turns to a genuine self-referential act, crafting a story about a cinematic praxis that flows into everyday life – and vice versa. As we watch a three-person film crew in action, on the natural set of an island that follows its own rhythm when the tourist season ends, we experience the dynamics developing within this passion project and the stakes it entails, while adopting the director’s gaze on human relationships. Biology necessarily affects this gaze (it is known that Hong-Sang Soo’s eyesight slowly deteriorates, yet the blurred and crude images produced become increasingly penetrating, like the drops that find their way to burrow into the cracks.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Hong Sang-soo
Script: Hong Sang-soo
Cinematography: Hong Sang-soo
Editing: Hong Sang-soo
Sound: Kim Hyejeong
Music: Hong Sang-soo
Actors: Shin Seokho, Ha Seongguk, Kim Seungyun
Production: JEONWONSA Film Co. Production
Producers: Hong Sang-soo
Format: DCP
Production Country: Republic of Korea (South Korea)
Production Year: 2023
Duration: 61'
Contact: Finecut Co. Ltd.

Hong Sangsoo

Hong Sang-soo was born in 1960 in Seoul and studied filmmaking at Chungang University before receiving a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. He made an astounding debut with his first feature film The Day a Pig Fell into a Well in 1996. Since then, through the 12 films, he has written and directed, Hong has consistently enjoyed exploring the complex architecture beneath his characters’ seemingly random lives. Renowned for his unique cinematographic language and aesthetics in filmmaking, Hong Sang-soo is one of the most established auteurs in contemporary Korean cinema.

Filmography

1996 The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well
2000 Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
2004 Woman Is the Future of Man
2008 Night and Day
2010 Oki’s Movie
2012 In Another Country
2014 Hill of Freedom
2017 On the Beach at Night Alone
2018 Grass
2020 The Woman Who Ran
2022 The Novelist's Film
2023 In Our Day