Jeonju International Film Festival

Samsara is the Buddhist cycle of death and reincarnation. From the temples of Laos, we will accompany a soul in its transit from one body to another through the bardo.

Hong Sang-soo's Lost in the Mountains depicts Mi-sook's suffering when she discovers her friend Jin-young has been secretly sleeping with her lover.

In 1978, five leftist youths who believed that the leftist revolution could be realized through politics, not violence, gathered in a house and started to talk about the magazine they had published. The unexpected events that take place later that night reveal the political chaos in Turkey before the 1980 coup d'état.

Man is good and man is evil; man’s complex nature and existence has always been defined by these two opposite sides. In a remote island in the Philippines, the inhabitants of a once-prosperous town have been struggling since a giant Canadian gold mining company was forced to close down. While the company’s departure carried an important victory for people who fought for its closure because of environmental concerns, it also made a lot of people bitter, angry and desperate. It was an economic debacle for them. And they perpetually long for the return of the company. In these desperate times, Ferding, Santos and Willy drown their frustrations by endless drinking of alcohol. The visit of a young Canadian woman who was born in the mining village changed everything.

After a chance meeting, a man and a woman stroll through Seoul’s changing streets.

Hong Sang-Soo’s Lost in the Mountains (South Korea, 32min) the visitor is the supremely self-centred Mi-Sook, who drives to Jeonju on impulse to see her classmate Jin-Young – only to discover that her friend is having an affair with their married professor, who Mi-Sook once dated herself. The level of social embarrassment goes off the scale. In Naomi Kawase’s Koma (Japan, 34min), Kang Jun-Il travels to a village in rural Japan to honour his grandfather’s dying wish by returning a Buddhist scroll to its ancestral home. Amid ancient superstitions, a new relationship forms. And in Lav Diaz’ Butterflies Have No Memories (Philippines, 42min) ‘homecoming queen’ Carol returns to the economically depressed former mining town she came from – and becomes the target of an absurd kidnapping plot hatched by resentful locals. Serving as his own writer, cameraman and editor, Diaz casts the film entirely from members of his crew and delivers a well-seasoned mix of social realism and fantasy. —bfi

Seung-woo, a creatively blocked screenwriter, travels to the small town of Samnye to escape the distractions of big city life. There he meets Hee-in, a young woman who works in a bakery, who is also looking to escape from her surroundings.

A man awakes to find himself trapped in a dirty, confined crawlspace. He barely has enough room to move. He also has no memory of why he's there, or why he's bleeding from a stomach wound. Apparently drugged, he occasionally 'zones out' of his surroundings as he tries to edge towards his way to freedom. But the more he explores, the more pain he has to endure, and the more frightening his predicament becomes.

In South Korea, 2002, the Democratic Party put the presidential nomination to a plebiscite for the first time. Amongst numerous candidates, the one who brought about the most unexpected result was a fringe candidate named Roh Moo-hyun.

An old woman flies past six floors after jumping from the roof of her apartment block. Six stories on the poor state of humanity, told with humour and rare imagination to the accompaniment of a pulsating soundtrack from Amon Tobin. A woeful burlesque set in the present by one of Europe’s most original contemporary filmmakers.

EXIT: Woo-hyun lives a small-time criminal life earning his life as a pick-pocket. He often pays attention to an arrow-shaped-tattoo of his girlfriend which is on the genital area. He calls it ‘the emergency exit.’ THE BODY: Jung-su and Young-sun are a young couple. One new year’s eve, a movie director visits the couple’s house. Only the strong wind of the sea and slow time cross the living room and three people sense something…alive. WALTZING ON THUNDER: Mi-jung just happens to meet a group of people who have survived from being struck by lightning. While becoming aware of her old wound, she takes part in a trip for lightning strikes ‘again’.

A housemaid, working in an exclusive gated community in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, embarks on a journey of sexual and mental liberation in a nudist swinger-club boarding the high security walls.

The awkward, distant, and wounded three sisters gather at their hometown for their father's birthday. However, on the day of the party, there is a big mess because of their little brother Jin-seob's abnormal behavior, and the past of the three sisters slowly reveals.

Maria travels to Puerto Williams to star in a movie. But the film crew won't be able to arrive due to a strong storm. Alone, she'll seek help for severe back pain, which will lead her to discover life in the southernmost city in the world and a pending story in her life.

Coincidence brings Gyohwan, a ´keyboard warrior´ who has left home and is moving from gosiwon to gosiwon, and Jeongsu, a ´patriotic senior citizen´ who has fought all his life against the left wing, together who become close like a grandfather and grandson. A black comedy about the two who each prepare for their last big event which leads to disaster.

A middle-age couple visit a temple in Chuncheon where they spent their first night together 30 years prior. On the way, one of them cannot find their phone and hurries to find it. As the night unravels, they will come across an ex-lover, a friend, and a young couple who resemble them 30 years ago.

Chang-seok's marriage failed and he is about to publish a novel based on his own experience. After he meets various people, Chang-seok changes his mind and starts weaving yet another story.

Jeong-Woo is sent to a sanitarium deep in the mountains to overcome his alcoholism. There he meets a young nun named Maria who has a special ability to see inside people. In this isolated sanitarium Maria is the only person who seems to care for him and soon he feels drawn to her. While struggling with his withdrawal symptoms, Jeong-woo has a vision where his reality is different from what he believes. The further he escapes from his alcoholism, the closer he gets to confronting the past that he has denied for years.

You earn as much as you work, and you live off that money. This simple proposition has always been a problem for Jung-cheol. At the soybean paste factory he went to work for in the bitter winter, he dreams of travelling to warm Philippines in spring - as long as he survives the winter making his portion of the soybean paste that he promised the boss. But the more he struggles to live, the worse it gets. And soon, the fermentation room turns musty with the black mold spreading from the thousands of ferment boiled soybean lumps.

A young Czech theater director has an ambition to adapt Eurypides' Phaedra. However, having affair with the actress, he puts his marriage at risk and the play turns to be a fiasco. Desperate, he tries to be the best possible father and husband. Not a perfect one.