Release D-7, Hong Jin-hwan's Documentary 'Oh, Valentine' Achieves Funding Success Amidst Hot Interest!

Hong Jin-hwan's feature documentary film 〈Oh, Valentine〉 is generating high expectations as it successfully concludes its funding project ahead of its release on March 11, gaining attention in various fields such as art, photography, and programming.

The film 〈Oh, Valentine〉, which senses the possibilities of struggle and revolution that cannot be given up through the historical testimonies of two people who were with the late Park Il-soo, a subcontracted worker at Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2004, is becoming a hot topic among critics and cinephile audiences, while Hong Jin-hwan's filmography is gaining attention as a nominee for the '2026 Artist of the Year Award.'

Hong Jin-hwan, an artist and director who continues to work across galleries and cinemas, observes and intervenes in the power relations surrounding photography and images. Director Hong primarily deals with media such as photography, film, and web programming, and has established a unique aesthetic through numerous solo and group exhibitions and collaborative projects. In particular, his previous work 〈Melting Ice Cream〉 won the Terayama Shuji Award in the East Asia Experimental Competition at the 36th Image Forum Festival, leaving a strong impression on the Korean independent film scene with its formal challenges. This is why he has been recognized early on among cinephiles and audiences sensitive to contemporary art discourse. Additionally, Director Hong has been selected as a sponsored artist for the '2026 Artist of the Year Award' at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, where he is set to hold an exhibition presenting the latest trends in Korean contemporary art and contemporary discourse this coming July.

First unveiled in the Frontier section of the 17th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival last year, 〈Oh, Valentine〉 is Hong Jin-hwan's second feature documentary. It prominently features a split screen and overlapping sounds, as well as the tension between still images and moving images, interweaving the past and present. The film sensibly invokes contemporary agendas such as labor and life, communism, eco-feminism, and ecological movements, proposing a new cinematic language that deviates from existing documentary grammar.

Since its premiere at the film festival, 〈Oh, Valentine〉 has also garnered attention from critics. The festival organizers commented, "It is the subjective story of those living in the aftermath," and noted, "We are not abandoned in the place of failure, in the space of death, but perhaps we are in a revolutionary time where we are facing a decision in the process of encounters and unfolding ourselves into the next process." (Cha Hee-sook, film critic at Busan Documentary Film Festival) Another comment stated, "It is a poem and a song that embodies the tenacity and perseverance of two artists trying to rearrange the phrase 'Another world is possible'" (Lee Song-hee-il, director), reflecting the aesthetic expansion of contemporary documentary. 〈Oh, Valentine〉 draws on the tension and discord created by the heterogeneity of video and photography as a significant language of the film, exploring the threads of Korea's labor movement history more deeply and broadly than in previous works.

Meanwhile, 〈Oh, Valentine〉 concluded its release project funding, which took place from February 6 for about three weeks, achieving over 100% of its target amount, raising expectations. It has received enthusiastic responses from many even before its release. 〈Oh, Valentine〉 critically revisits the trajectory of the Korean labor movement, which has abandoned class consciousness and divided since the massive workers' struggle in 1987, while capturing the thoughts directed outside of capitalism through the poetry and songs of the two individuals who were pushed out in the process. In an era where it seems impossible to find any hope, 〈Oh, Valentine〉 tells a story about the precariousness of being unable to reconcile with capitalism even in death, and is set to hit theaters on March 11.