Hong Sang-soo

In a foreign city, an actress wanders through a seaside town, reflecting on her relationship with a married man. How important is love in one’s life? Younghee wants to find out.

South Korean cinema is in the throes of a creative explosion where mavericks are encouraged and masters are venerated. But from where has this phenomenon emerged? What is the culture that has yielded this range of filmmakers? With The Nine Lives of Korean Cinema, French critic, writer and documentarian Hubert Niogret provides a broad overview but, nevertheless, an excellent entry point into this unique type of national cinema that still remains a mystery for many people. The product of a troubled social and political history, Korean cinema sports an identity that is unique in much modern film. Niogret's documentary tells of the country's cinematic history - the ups along with the downs - and gives further voice to the artists striving to express their concerns, fears and aspirations.

Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

A film director who no longer makes films arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, he wanders the city aimlessly for three days, grabbing drinks and meeting women, with each day playing out like a version of the last.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

By mistake, film director Ham Chunsu arrives in Suwon a day early. With time to kill before his lecture the next day, Chunsu stops by a restored, old palace and meets an artist named Yoon Heejung. Together, they go to Heejung's workshop to look at her paintings, have Sushi with Soju for dinner, and get close. Later, they go to another café and have more drinks with Heejung's acquaintances. When asked if he is married, Chunsu is forced to reveal the fact that he is, and Heejung gets deeply disappointed...

While a South Korean man wanders the city in search of the woman he just broke up with, she successively meets and flirts with two men who claim to have met her before.

Facing her mother’s departure and the weight of a secret affair with her professor, college student Haewon drifts through a series of encounters and dreams, blurring the lines between her desires and reality.

She has just finished the shoot of an independent film and now has to give three interviews about it. Afterwards, in her acting class, her teacher asks her to reenact the interviews. But for some reason, she is unable to remember them.

Kim Seong-nam travels to Paris to escape an arrest, leaving his wife behind in Korea. After he arrives, he meets an ex-girlfriend and is introduced to a small community of Korean artists.

The lives of 4 interconnected South Koreans – a married couple, a novelist the wife is having an affair with, and a second woman the novelist is simultaneously involved with.

When filmmaker Young-soo introduces writer Soo-jung to his friend Jae-hoon, he unintentionally creates a love triangle. While Jae-hoon pursues Soo-jung, Young-soo clashes with his crew. Yet, just as the story appears to end, it starts all over again, this time with plenty of variations.

A short film about the award ceremony at Berlinale '21 and then also about a snail.

While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends. She visits the first two at their homes, and the third she encounters by chance at a theater. While they make friendly conversation, as always, several currents flow independently above and below the surface of the sea.

A young woman and her mother run away to the seaside town of Mohang to escape their mounting debt. The young woman begins writing a script for a short film in order to calm her nerves: There are three women named Anne, and each woman consecutively visits the seaside town of Mohang. A young woman tends to the small hotel by the Mohang foreshore owned by her parents. A certain lifeguard can be seen restlessly wandering up and down the beach that lies nearby. Each Anne stays at this small hotel, receives some assistance from the owner's daughter, and ventures onto the beach where they meet the lifeguard.

A South Korean art house film director is first invited to serve on the panel of a film festival, then to guest lecture at a film school.

Sunhi, a film major graduate, visits her school to ask her Professor Choi for a recommendation letter to study in U.S. Knowing the professor favors her, she expects a good recommendation from him. Out from her shell after a long time, Sunhi also ends up meeting two men from her past: Munsu, her ex-boy friend, and Jaehak, a director who graduated from the same film school. Through the encounters between Sunhi and the three men, they give each other an 'advice on life' with good intentions. The three men who all have strong interests in her are led to guess and define her, unable to tell how she really feels inside. Strangely, the mentioned advices and traits of her are similar and seem to pass from one person to the next. The words of 'advice on life' seem doubtable and slip away as the three men's thoughts on Sunhi become more and more irrelevant.

Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.

After being rejected for a film role, a stage actor leaves Seoul to visit a friend and, in his travels, winds up getting involved with two women.