Director Hong Sang-soo won the Silver Bear Award Jury Grand Prize at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival for his film ‘A Novelist’s Movie’. With this, director Hong achieved the feat of winning the award at the Berlin Film Festival for three years in a row.
According to the Berlin Film Festival website and foreign media on the 16th (local time), director Hong won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prize, which is the second prize after the Golden Bear Award, which is the highest award. Director Hong won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the 71st Berlin Film Festival last year for ‘Introduction’ and the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th Film Festival for ‘The Woman Who Ran’. Including the fact that actress Kim Min-hee, who appeared in Hong’s ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’ in 2017, won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress, it will be the fourth time director Hong’s work has won the Silver Bear Award only at the Berlin Film Festival.
Director Hong said at the awards ceremony, “I wasn’t expecting it, but I was very surprised. “I am just continuing what I was doing,” he said. He even sang Kim Min-hee, his lover, who appeared as the main character in ‘Novelist’s Movie’, to the stage. Kim Min-hee said, “At today’s screening, I felt that the audience genuinely loved the movie. It was touching and I will never forget it,” she said. The award ceremony was hosted by Japanese master Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director for ‘Drive My Car’. The judges evaluated ‘The Novelist’s Film’, saying, “The simplicity and mystery of the film gives courage to break prejudice.”
‘Novelist’s Movie’ is director Hong’s 27th feature film, and is a black-and-white film filmed in Korea in March of last year. Actress Lee Hye-young, Kim Min-hee, and Seo Young-hwa, who appeared in her previous work ‘In Front of Your Face’, which was released in October last year, participated. The film begins with novelist Jun-hee (Lee Hye-young), who sets out on her way to find her junior’s bookstore, where she hid, and tells the story of Jun-hee meeting her film director couple and an actor (Kim Min-hee). Director Hong said at a press conference held in Berlin that day, “I had two people (Lee Hye-young and Kim Min-hee), and while I was preparing (shooting), the idea of a novelist making his own work into a movie came to mind.” He explained why he made the film. The film’s domestic release date has not been set, but it is expected to be released in the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, the Golden Bear, the highest award of the day, went to Spanish female director Carla Simone’s ‘Alcalas’, and the Silver Bear for Best Director went to Claire Denis (France), who directed ‘Both Sides of the Blade’.
Reporter Hyo-Joo Son [email protected]