[Photo &] “Audience response matters more than awards”: Lee Chang-dong returns in triumph with Silver Lion after 24 years — audiences can see it in theaters first on the 23rd

A preview screening and press conference for director Lee Chang-dong’s new film ‘Possible Love’ took place on the 21st at ‘CGV Yongsan I’Park Mall’ in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Lee, who achieved a landmark feat 24 years after winning the ‘Silver Lion’ (Grand Jury Prize) at the 83rd ‘Venice International Film Festival’, said the audience’s response mattered “far more than the award itself” as he reflected on the film’s theatrical release ahead of its opening on the 23rd.

Silver Lion comes 24 years later: “The audience’s gaze comes before the trophy”

The Netflix film ‘Possible Love’ was invited to the competition section of the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. It had been 24 years since Lee last lifted a trophy at the festival, when he won the Best Director award (Silver Lion) for ‘Oasis’ in 2002.

Back from his triumphant homecoming, Lee said he was “happy and honored,” but stressed that “far more important than the award itself was how the film would be received when it first went out into the world and met its audience.”

He added, “Even though this is by no means an easy or provocative film, I was genuinely relieved and happy to see from the audience’s expressions and reactions that they fully felt and responded to the questions and messages the film raises.”

Two couples facing capital and class, with lives moving along divergent paths

‘Possible Love’ closely follows two couples living in starkly different circumstances: Ho-seok (Seol Kyung-gu), a laid-off worker, and his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), as well as Ye-ji (Jo Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker who wants to make their lives her subject, and her husband Sang-woo (Jo In-sung).

The actors at the press conference said they had wrestled intensely with how each character is consumed by or resists ‘money’ and ‘class.’ Seol Kyung-gu said Ho-seok, who has been laid off, was likely experiencing a swirl of complex emotions — shame, guilt, rage and inferiority — “with his sense of self completely shattered.” He said he focused on delicately conveying Ho-seok’s intimidation and revulsion when facing Sang-woo and his wife, who are economically affluent.

Jeon Do-yeon appeared via video because of the overseas schedule for the theater production ‘The Cherry Orchard.’ She described capital and class as “terrifying forces that can destroy a person’s values and even strip away their sense of worth,” adding that “Mi-ok is a strong woman who desperately tries to protect her own values and her family even amid that enormous wave.”

By contrast, the couple Sang-woo and Ye-ji, who lack nothing materially, are also portrayed as layered characters carrying their own private desires and deficiencies. Jo In-sung described Sang-woo as “a character who appears kind on the surface but harbors a cold, frightening poison underneath.” Jo Yeo-jeong added that through Ye-ji, viewers can glimpse “the bitter truth that a fulfilling life or human relationships are by no means directly proportional to financial security.”

“How not to consume other people’s pain”: A creator’s unflinching ethical conscience

Lee built the foundation of ‘Possible Love’ on the deep shock he experienced roughly a decade ago while witnessing mass layoffs at a major corporation, a strike and the ensuing forced crackdown.

He acknowledged, “At one point, I even abandoned the project because I wasn’t sure I had the right to honestly bring their painful stories to the screen or how closely my life touched theirs.” He added that “as time passed and society’s view of labor itself began to change, the intervention of a new perspective — that of a documentary filmmaker couple — finally allowed the story to be completed as a cinematic narrative.”

Through Ye-ji’s lens, the film also offers a sharp examination of using other people’s pain as artistic material. Lee said, “Whether it is possible to tell their story in full without reducing their suffering to a mere consumer product or a writer’s material has been a question running through my entire life, and it remains a task to which I have yet to find a clear answer.” He stressed that he “wanted to engage audiences in an intense discussion of the ‘ethical questions’ and ‘attitude’ involved in creating films.”

The extended sequence midway through the film depicting a psychotherapy session attended by the families of laid-off workers, filmed in a style close to a long take, was also the product of this struggle. Lee declared that “delivering their real voices raw and unfiltered, like a documentary, was an essential element I could never compromise on or give up.”

‘Possible Love’ will open early at select theaters on the 23rd, where it will meet audiences on the big screen for the first time, before its worldwide release on ‘Netflix’ on Nov. 6. Lee concluded, “Even when a film is physically completed, it is ultimately the audience that gives it life and truly completes it. I hope this work will come alive as a more powerful and meaningful discourse when it meets its audience.”