Hong Sang-soo and Kim Min-hee’s New Film “There’s Nowhere to Look”—Selected in the Locarno Competition

Where the gaze of a master lingers, the 35th aesthetics blooming in Jeju

Director ‘Hong Sang-soo’, who has quietly carved a path through the trajectory of Korean auteur cinema, has once again received a call from Switzerland’s Locarno. His 35th feature, ‘There’s Nowhere to Look’, secured the kind of breakthrough that comes with an official selection for the 79th Locarno Film Festival in the International Competition category.

According to the overseas distributor Finecut on the 9th, this selection is the fifth time overall that Director Hong has advanced to Locarno in his film career. Founded in 1946 and known as the home for art-house cinema around the world, the Locarno Film Festival previously went so far as to honor him in 2015 with the ‘Palme d’Or’—its top prize—awarded for ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’, drawing deep acclaim for his body of work. With this new film, the global film world is watching closely to see whether he can seize the trophy again.

The Locarno Film Festival’s executive committee praised the selection’s backdrop, saying it was a work that “delivered, with startling ease, the meaning of life and beauty—as well as the complex nature lying beneath them—based on poetic expression and refined technique,” and added that it “perfectly proved once again why Director Hong Sang-soo is a great master of our era.”

In ‘There’s Nowhere to Look’, the new film follows the journey of Sang-hee, the protagonist, who heads to Jeju with her younger brother to search for their mother, who left the family a decade earlier. In particular, the most eye-catching element of the film is the participation of veteran actor ‘Choi Myung-gil’. Her stepping into Director Hong’s world for the first time raises curiosity about what kind of resolute performance she will deliver. Also a key point for viewers is the ensemble his long artistic partner ‘Kim Min-hee’ helps form, along with ‘Kwon Hae-hyo’, ‘Shin Seok-ho’, ‘Park Mi-so’, and others—often referred to as the Hong Sang-soo troupe.

As always, the film also showcases the essence of Director Hong’s distinctive one-person production system, in which he independently controls every stage—from direction and screenplay to cinematography, sound, editing, and music. Kim Min-hee likewise did not stop at her work as a leading performer; she also took a credit as production chief, helping complete the film from beginning to end.

With Hong Sang-soo’s new perspective, constantly reinventing itself among the ranks of world masters, ‘There’s Nowhere to Look’ will first be unveiled at the Locarno Film Festival, which runs from August 5 to 15, as a world premiere. It is then expected to open officially in South Korea’s domestic theaters later in the second half of the year.