ACF 1382: Hong Sang-soo Film Retrospective starts tomorrow

Hong Sang-soo Film Retrospective

The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, NY

From midtown, taxi or N/Q Train outbound to 36th Avenue

The Korea Society celebrates Asia Week with a screening of works by celebrated director Hong Sang-soo. Since his debut The Day a Pig into the Well in 1996, all of his films were invited by prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Berlin, and New York Film Festivals, and began to receive worldwide attention. This series will present five highly acclaimed films that will be shown at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. This retrospective is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Below is information about the films being screened this weekend.

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well / Daijiga umule pajinnal
1996, 113 minutes 

Starring Bang Eun-hee, Cho eun-sook, Park Jin-seong
When: Saturday, March 17 at 2:00 PM

Hong Sang-soo's debut film was a critical success, winning awards at the Rotterdam and Vancouver film festivals and revealing Hong’s consistent theme of individuals desperately longing for connection. It depicts tangled and tragic relationships: Min-jae obsessed with Hyo-sub, a struggling writer; Po-kyung, a married woman, in an affair with Hyo-sub; and Dong-woo, Po-kyung's husband alone. The title is from a 1954 book by John Cheever.

Woman on the Beach / Haebyonui yeoin 
2006, 128 minutes 
Starring : Go Hyun–jung, Kim Seung–woo, Kim Tae-woo, Song Seon-mi
When: Saturday, March 17 at 5:00 PM

Joong-rae goes on a road trip with friend Chang-wook and Chang-wook's girlfriend, Moon-sook. In the beautiful beach setting of Shinduri, Joong-rae and Moon-sook find themselves attracted to each other and spend a passionate night together. But where does life go the morning after? A filmmaker, writing his latest script at a seaside resort town, becomes involved with two women. As ever, Hong is comically and painfully lucid in outlining the jealousy and self-absorption that fuel his male characters’ excess.

Night and Day / Bamgua nat
2008, 144 minutes
Starring : Kim Yeong-ho, Park Eun-hye, Seo Min-jung
When: Sunday, March 18 at 2:00 PM

Kim Sung-nam, a married 40-something painter in Seoul, flees Korea after he's caught smoking marijuana while drunk at a gathering. In Paris, he takes refuge at a run-down lodge owned by a Korean, calls his abandoned wife, and hits the streets looking for action. Night and Day premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008 and screened at the 46th New York Film Festival.

 Like You Know It All / Jal aljido mothamyeonseo
2009, 126 minutes
Starring: Kim Tae-woo, Uhm Ji-won, Go Hyun-Jung
When: Sunday, March 18 at 5:30 PM

In this entrant into the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight, Kim Tae-woo (Women on the Beach, Woman is the Future of Man) plays a critics’ filmmaker, often drunk and confused as his work takes him across the country and into contact with the past. Director Ku attends a festival in a small town and bumps into old friend, Bu. Over drinks, he meets Bu’s wife. Soon after, Ku goes to Jeju Island to give a lecture. There he meets his college senior and finds out that his new wife is Ku’s love from his twenties.