491 films from 75 countries were submitted - 6 out of 10 films are directed by women

The 23rd JEONJU International Film Festival (JEONJU IFF, Festival Director Lee Joondong) announced the 10 titles selected for International Competition.

The 23rd JEONJU IFF’s International Competition introduces the first or second feature films of promising directors from around the world. 491 films from 75 countries were submitted from Wednesday, November 24, 2021 to Monday, January 10, 2021. Overall, a total of 10 films were selected for their Asian premieres and some for International premieres through preliminary evaluation.

Among the official selections, 6 titles are feature films, and two of them are about youth. Actual People is a bold portrayal of youth. Album for the Youth, on the other hand, is a coming-of-age story about two friends who just graduated high school. Other two films feature women as protagonists. Medusa deals with political and timely themes about women with some wit and humor. A Human Position tells the story of a female journalist who became interested in Afghan refugees in a secluded small town in Norway.

Moreover, there is Raydio, a Taiwanese film that projects the growing gap between the rich and the poor, generation gap, and employment problems amid the COVID-19 pandemic, into the miserable daily life of a father and son. Unrest, a Swiss film that sets in a clock factory in a small town in Switzerland at the end of the 19th century and captures the workers’ solidarity with the anarchist movement domestically as well as internationally through beautiful images. It seems that these two films respectively represent the reality and ideal.

There are three documentaries selected. The Silence of the Mole re-examined the tragic modern history of Guatemala, where many people were brutally sacrificed by the military dictatorship, through the testimony of a journalist risking his life working as a mole, seeking for democracy. Geographies of Solitude depicts the magical beauty of the island and the daily life of Zoe Lucas, a scholar and environmentalist, who has been living in Sable Island located off the Atlantic coast of Canada since the 1970s, exploring and documenting nature every day and collecting plastic waste from the land. TOKYO KURDS, a heartrending film about the Turkish Kurdish refugees settled in a suburb of Tokyo.

Last but not least, Aleph is an experimental hybrid film by a former Yugoslavian director who currently works in the United States, after being inspired by the work of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Susana Santos Rodrigues, program advisor at Rotterdam International Film Festival, Alejandro Gómez Treviño, subdirector of programming at Cineteca Nacional México, and JEONJU International Film Festival Programmers Moon Seok, Sung Moon, Chun Jinsu participated the selection.

On behalf of the jury members, programmer Chun Jinsu said, “In terms of quantity, it is good enough to say that we have returned to the pre-pandemic era. In International Competition section, it is difficult to pinpoint a certain trend that penetrates the entire submissions, as various themes of films are submitted from various countries. However, 6 among selected 10 films were directed by women. Just like last year, women filmmakers continued to make rapid strides.”

Vice Chairman Song Na-ra
Vice Chairman Song Na-ra

 

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