“Next Sohee” by July Jung, wins the 21st Florence Korea Film Fest

It is director Jung July’s“Next Sohee” that wins the jury prize at the 21st Florence Korea Film Fest.

The film tells the story of a high school student who loves dance, music and hanging out with friends, but when she begins her apprenticeship in a call center she discovers a working world so ruthless that it completely undoes people, eventually leading to a tragic end.  

The jury, this year chaired by U.S. director Casey Kauffman and composed of Elisa Baldini, Lorena Rojas,  Carlo Benedetti, and Simone Bartalesi, awarded the prize with the following motivation:

“a gradual, poetic and totalizing immersion inside the mystery of a young life of simple desires; the progressive understanding of a voice hitherto stifled by a system that demands to be there without really existing. With the gentle yet firm step of one who fights for an uncomfortable truth, Next Sohee takes us to the realization that only by stopping to listen there, where hope has been lost, is it possible to start again and, perhaps, change something“.

The jury also awarded a special mention to the Independant Korea section film “Through My Midwinter” by Oh Seong-ho; the film tells the love story of an unhappy couple challenged by economic and labor circumstances. With the motivation:

“through a few essential narrative and visual elements, is able to tell a universal story of defeat and estrangement, making the muted social forces evident and very close to the hearts of the two protagonists who are crushed by them. Work, class, social ascent (or descent), love, drawn with light and delicate strokes, while remaining strongly anchored in Korea, transcend its boundaries and speak perhaps of our condition as men of the 21st century“. 

The theatrical audience decreed Park Gyu-tae’s comedy “6/45,” a story of South Korean and North Korean soldiers competing for the 5.7 billion won lottery that features two stars of the small and big screen Lee Yi-kyung and Ko Kyoung-pyo as its winners. Instead, audiences viewing the festival online at MyMovies awarded Park Dong-hoon ‘s “In Our Prime” .