Jeonju film festival to open with Radu Jude’s ‘Kontinental ‘25’, reveals competition lineup

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Kontinental '25

Source: Courtesy of Luxbox

Kontinental ’25

South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (April 30-May 9) has unveiled the international competition titles for its 26^th edition, which will open with Radu Jude’s Berlinale award-winner Kontinental ’25 and close with local documentary In The Land Of Machines.

The festival will feature a total of 224 films from 57 countries and host 80 world premieres.

After winning a Silver Bear for best screenplay at the Berlinale, Romanian dark comedy Kontinental ’25 has been set as the opening film. JIFF programmer Moon Sun-kyung said the use of iPhone cinematography in Jude’s film “aligns with our festival’s spirit of alternatives and independence”.

Closing film In The Land Of Machines is a documentary about three Nepali migrant workers living in South Korea. Directed by Kim Ok-young, it is set to receive its world premiere at JIFF.

Revealing its selection of 10 international competition titles, the festival said it had received 662 films from 86 countries. More than 200 were documentaries – a figure the festival said reflected a tough production climate for filmmakers in the wake of the pandemic.

The competition lineup includes Deming Chen’s documentary Always, fresh from winning the top DOX:Award prize at CPH:DOX. The US-France-China co-production follows a young boy from a poor family in China’s Hunan province who discovers poetry.

From India, Suhel Banerjee’s CycleMahesh recounts the journey of a young man who travels 2,000km home on his bicycle during the pandemic, blending documentary and fiction. The film won best first feature at IDFA in October.

Mad Bills To Pay: (Or Destiny, Dile Que No Soy Malo) from US filmmaker Joel Alfonso Vargas is a coming-of-age story that heads to Jeonju after premiering at Sundance and screening in Berlin.

Also from Berlin is Yuri Semashko’s The Swan Song Of Fedor Ozerov, the story of a young musician obsessed with finding a sweater he believes grants magical songwriting powers, which won a jury award when it played in Forum at the Berlinale in February.

Ulysses by Japan’s Hikaru Uwagawa is a three-part film that tells stories of daily life in Madrid, San Sebastian and Obon while Cherub by Canada’s Devin Shears is about an overweight straight man who submits a photo of himself to a gay magazine for ‘big men and their admirers’.

Further titles include French feature Ollie by Antoine Besse; documentary Resistance Reels by Alejandro Alvarado Jodar and Concha Barquero Artes; Sugarland by Austria’s Isbella Brunacker; and Then, The Fog from Argentina’s Martin Sappia.

All are Asian premieres except Resistance Reels and Sugarland, which are international premieres.

As previously announced, the Korean competition section will also comprise 10 titles and festival organisers said there had been an increased number of LGBTQ+ films both submitted and selected. These include Park Joon-ho’s 3670, about a North Korean defector who can finally reveal his gay identity, and Divine Sung’s Summer’s Camera, about a high school student who develops a crush on her classmate. There are also stories that centre on “found family” dramas, such as Bang Miri’s Save and Yum Sim-kyoung’s Sua’s Home.

Singer and actor Lee Jung-hyun of Decision To Leave and Peninsula has been selected as JIFF’s programmer of the year. Lee, who also debuts as a filmmaker at this year’s Jeonju with short Going Flower Viewing, has chosen six films including A Petal, which marked her acting debut in 1996, and the Dardenne brothers’ The Child.