Hong Sang-soo's New Film 'The Day She Returns' Premieres in the Panorama Section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival

Director Hong Sang-soo's 34th feature film 〈The Day She Returns〉 was first unveiled on the evening of the 18th (local time) in the Panorama section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival. This black-and-white film highlights a day in the life of actress Bae Jeong-soo (played by Song Sun-mi), who returns to independent film after a long hiatus.

After taking a break from acting for over ten years, actress Bae Jeong-soo conducts consecutive interviews with three reporters at a restaurant. The reporters focus on her personal life, including her divorce, her pet dog, and her dieting secrets. Initially, she shows discomfort when asked about her divorce, but as another reporter inquires again, she gradually reveals her true feelings. However, after the interview, she contacts them again, requesting that the divorce discussion be omitted from the article.

The reporters express their honor in meeting an actress once beloved by the entire nation, yet they fail to ask any substantial questions about the film. They only provide vague impressions, stating that the film was great and sparked various thoughts, but they couldn't articulate them clearly.

Feeling the urge to drink, Bae Jeong-soo offers the reporters German-style draft beer and confesses that she would have died from alcoholism if she hadn't had her daughter. She discusses how one interpretation and intention can be quite useless, to which a reporter comments that she seems like a person who practices asceticism. Bae emphasizes that she would do anything for her daughter and dog, repeatedly advising to 'love yourself the most.'

After her long-awaited return, Bae Jeong-soo is also taking acting classes. In class, she repeats the interviews she conducted earlier in the day, but struggles to remember and often checks the script. After class, instructor Kim Young (played by Jo Yoon-hee) suggests having a beer, but she declines, eager to return home to her daughter.

After the screening, Director Hong Sang-soo primarily discussed his writing process during a conversation with the audience. When asked about the starting point of his ideas, he replied, "Usually, it starts not with an idea but with the actor. The character and image are inherent, and the rest of the time is just execution. Execution is not discovery."

He also stated, "I want to convey this message, this message is important, I want to make a very interesting film, I want to earn millions of dollars, (these things) are too boring," revealing his philosophy of excluding commercial motives from his work. When asked why he made the film in black and white, he simply replied, "I just thought black and white was better for this film."

Hong Sang-soo is a director that the Berlin Film Festival has cherished for a long time. The festival has invited thirteen of his films since his debut work 〈The Day a Pig Fell into a Well〉 in 1997, awarding him five times. Among them, he won the Jury Prize twice for 〈The Novelist's Film〉 in 2022 and 〈A Traveler’s Needs〉 in 2024. The Panorama section, where his new film was screened, is a non-competitive section that gauges trends in world cinema through auteur or experimental works.