Lee Chang-dong’s ‘Possible Love’ wins U.S. Auteur Award, first Korean recipient; global release set for November

Master filmmaker returns with all-star ensemble, moving from Venice to San Francisco

Lee Chang-dong, a master of Korean cinema, has once again demonstrated his singular artistry on the global stage with ‘Possible Love’, his latest Netflix original film. He has been selected as the first Korean recipient of the Auteur Award at the 49th Mill Valley Film Festival, which will be held in San Francisco next month.

Netflix said on the 3rd that the film also received an official invitation to the festival’s Spotlight program, a central section that focuses on the latest work by auteur directors who have built distinctive artistic worlds. Organized by the California Film Institute, the Mill Valley Film Festival’s Auteur Award is a prestigious honor recognizing a director’s outstanding aesthetic achievements and cinematic vision, reaffirming Lee Chang-dong’s global standing.

‘Possible Love’ closely examines the psychological turbulence created when a laid-off laborer couple pushed to the brink becomes entangled with a documentary-making couple through the filming of a project. The cast is nothing short of formidable. Seol Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon anchor the story as Ho-seok, a laid-off worker, and his wife, Mi-ok, respectively. Jo Yeo-jeong plays Ye-ji, a documentary director tracking mass layoffs at a major corporation, while Jo In-sung plays her husband, Sang-woo, completing an unprecedented four-person ensemble.

The film will make its world premiere in the competition section of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, which opened on the 2nd (local time). Audiences in South Korea can see it first on the big screen through an early release at select theaters on the 23rd. It will then be released simultaneously on Netflix in more than 190 countries on Nov. 6.

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