Lee Chang-dong’s First Netflix Project, ‘Possible Love,’ Chosen as South Korea’s Oscar Entry

A master’s incisive vision meets a global platform in a gold-medal dash toward the Oscars

Lee Chang-dong, one of South Korea’s most celebrated auteurs, is ending an 8-year silence and entering the race for the 99th Academy Awards with his new film, ‘Possible Love’.

The Korean Film Council announced on the 25th that it had finalized ‘Possible Love’ as South Korea’s sole submission for the International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The jury cited as key reasons for its selection “the director’s trademark cool yet profound humanism and the excellence of his meticulously designed mise-en-scène,” along with “the finished work’s ability to densely weave the multilayered relationships created by its three-dimensional characters.”

The selection comes amid intense anticipation from the North American film industry. Lee’s return alone has drawn global attention, particularly after his previous film, ‘Burning’, made history in 2018 as the first South Korean film to reach the Academy’s shortlist for the Foreign Language Film award. The International Feature Film category is a fiercely competitive field in which each country may submit only one film.

‘Possible Love’, the first project between the global streaming service Netflix and Lee, follows a laid-off worker and his wife and a documentary director and his wife as their lives become intertwined and they confront divergent trajectories and intimate desires. Leading actors from South Korea’s film industry—including Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung and Jo Yeo-jeong—have joined the cast, promising explosive acting chemistry.

The shortlist for the Oscar statuette will take shape late this year, and the awards ceremony will be held next March. Before then, ‘Possible Love’ will receive official invitations to the competition section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, opening next month, and the special presentations section of the 51st Toronto International Film Festival, where it will undergo early scrutiny from critics and audiences around the world.