Content from Jeonju International Film Festival

The story is set in a remote spot in the Philippines. The economic crisis has taken over and a group of men doesn’t do much apart from drink. Until an enchanting Canadian woman arrives.

Mar believes in the mysterious legend of the lovers Halimah and Sukab on the island of Sawai from a hundred years ago. She travels to Sawai to experience what Halimah once felt, hoping to find Sukab there.

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.

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.

A sheep farmer whose remote and quiet life is disturbed by the arrival of both his lover and his twin sister.

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.

Trapped in routine, a Jeju poet finds himself drawn to a boy—and to emotions he’s never dared name.

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

Gi-tae, who continuously failed on his exam, returns to his hometown for the first time in ten years. He tried all different manual labors, but his debt-ridden life never seems to end. Soon Later, he starts working at a worn-out theater and meets Oh, the sign painter. Oh is never sober and always blunt, accordingly difficult to figure out. But Gi-tae doesn’t feel awkward around him.

Previously focused on Asian directors, “Jeonju Digital Project 2007” takes a look at Europe. The Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, the German filmmaker Harun Farocki, and the French filmmaker Eugène Green participated in this project.

Munseong goes to Gunsan for the first time in 30 years upon hearing his father Gwangdeok is dying. Gwangdeok’s death brings Munseong and his son Dojin together, but they are unable to reconcile. Painful history repeats in father-son relationship.

Novelist Jeong-seok is looking for his missing wife. A woman appears in front of him and suggests that she can find his wife. Meanwhile, some people approach him and ask him to find missing people. They find themselves becoming chased at some point.

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.

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

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.

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.

High school student Min-sik moves to a rural village with his family. There he meets Ye-joo, a classmate who became a social outcast after her father was accused of murder.

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.

Low-ranking civil servant Pil Yong (Park Joong Hoon) has things hard looking after his disabled wife(Ye Ji Won). He takes charge of a hanji project in hopes it will bring him a promotion. His wife comes from a family of hanji masters. One of his tasks include working with quarrelsome filmmaker Ji Won (Kang Su Yeon), who is shooting a documentary about hanji. Though he knows little about the subject to begin with, the more he learns about hanji, the more it takes on a new significance for him and the world around him.

Between reproaches over past problems that were never resolved and the uncertainty of a future that is relentlessly coming closer, a young couple takes a trip that will leave them at the beginning of a new life.