Jin Joo-seok works as an insert director on a commercial movie set. When Ma Chu-hyun, who has a strange aura, joins the film team, the two become close and spend the night together. However, the next day, Ma Chu-hyun gets angry with Jin Joo-seok for some reason. Afterwards, Jin Joo-seok waits for Ma Chu-hyun with a longing heart. This is the second feature film by director Lee Jong-su, who was invited to the New Currents section and won the KB New Currents Audience Award with Heritage (2023). Like in his previous work, sudden dark humor continues to shine in this film. The unpredictable and distinctive characters are also charming. The film creates an unfamiliar rhythm with witty dialogue, situations, and irregular twists, occasionally suddenly stopping to capture beautiful landscapes and portraits from time to time. It is a sarcastic commentary on cinema, yet above all, a poignant, biting, and charming love story. (JUNG Hanseok)

The man in pajamas on the bed with a dog is Leos Carax. But it is also not him. This director’s double, who first appeared in Holy Motors (2012), moves from his room to a theater filled with ghostly spectators. In It’s Not Me, Leos Carax once again invites us on a dreamlike journey filled with the ghosts of cinema. The first of these ghosts is Jean-Luc Godard, whose voice plays through Carax’s answering machine. Carax collages archival footage of pivotal 20th-century events, such as the 1939 American Nazi Party rally at Madison Square Garden, with more recent images. Carax’s narration – distant and echoing just like Godard’s – overlaps with them. Carax and Godard share a pessimism about humanity’s future, observing how little we have learned from our past mistakes. It’s Not Me is also a personal reflection on Carax’s own cinematic history. Bad Blood and The Lovers on the Bridge... Here, too, the ghosts return: David Bowie and actors from Pola X, who have since passed. Yet It’s Not Me is not a mournful film. Carax’s daughter symbolizes hope, and the small puppet from Annette re-enacts Denis Lavant’s unforgettable sprint from Bad Blood. For Carax, the driving force behind his pursuit of cinema lies in youth and its vitality. (SEO Seunghee)

Ignored, resentful and sad, the ‘middle-aged woman’ can also redeem herself as the heroine of her life. Combining the genres of fantasy and horror with a comic drama as its base, Vietnamese film Don’t Cry, Butterfly is a quirky film that puts women who have been denigrated as ‘middle-aged women’ to the forefront. Tam is an ordinary middle-aged woman. She witnesses her husband’s infidelity and turns to voodoo to try and win back her cheating husband’s heart. Tam’s house, which is haunted by the ‘spirit of the house’, soon becomes a place for social experimentation and a space for the genre to unfold. Unlike her mother’s generation, who cope with their real-life struggles by reconciling them with a fantasy world, Tam’s daughter Ha takes a different path. For Ha, home is no longer a place to be adapted through feng shui and witchcraft, but a place to either leave or change. It is ultimately the contrast between the two women, mother and daughter, that adds taut tension to the film. (LEE Hwajung)

A distant view of a densely packed residential neighborhood. Suddenly, a scream is heard from somewhere. After this intriguing opening scene, we see a middle school boy and his younger sister, an elementary school girl, getting ready for school in a messy house with no adults around. In another house in the village, a high school boy is living alone in a desolate home. Fragment follows the children of both the perpetrator and the victim, left alone in the world after a murder claimed their parents. The film breathlessly alternates between their lives, highlighting the contradictory and brutal existence they’ve been burdened with. Both sides evoke pity and sorrow, and as we switch between them, we are swept up in a torrent of emotions. Embracing unbearable misfortune, these seemingly incompatible vulnerable souls endure their lonely nights, and then, a kind of miracle happens. (JUNG Hanseok)

At the Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan border, Aza and Samat work as members of a drug trafficking organization. One day, they run into Nazik, who has narrowly escaped from human traffickers. Aza decides to give up the drug money and save Nazik, but Nazik tragically dies while crossing a river. Aza is determined to at least return Nazik’s remains to her homeland, but his decision thrusts him into even greater danger. The border regions of Central Asian countries, that are located adjacent to Afghanistan where massive amounts of drugs are produced, are hotspots for drug trafficking and organized crime. As those desperate for survival struggle to maintain a shred of dignity, the camera frequently pulls back to capture the vast and indifferent mountainous landscapes of the borderlands. The film is genre-driven but is also captivating with its restrained dialogue and composed visuals. (PARK Sun Young)

It’s 1997. Ai fails to enter the prestigious First Girl’s High School and is forced by her mother to enroll in the school’s night program instead. The day and night students share classrooms and wear the same uniform but different colored name tags. Ai ends up sharing a desk with Min, a day student who soon becomes her close friend. Spending time with Min and wearing Min’s uniform, Ai momentarily feels as though she belongs among the day students, and one day she meets a boy named Lu Ke who sets her heart aflutter. Set against the backdrop of a school, a place of cherished memories and a microcosm of the social hierarchy dictated by academic success, The Uniform skillfully portrays the story of teenagers navigating love, friendship, disappointment, and growth. This tender coming-of-age drama features a cast of talented young Taiwanese actors, including Chen Yan-fei, who won the Golden Horse Award for Best Newcomer for her performance in The Silent Forest (2020). (PARK Sun Young)

A new work by director Igarashi Kohei, widely known for The Night I Swam. Sano revisits the hotel where he first met his wife five years ago, searching for traces of his deceased wife. He harbors a vain hope of finding the red cap he bought her, but not only is the hat gone, the hotel is also scheduled to close soon. The film connects the present and the past through the song “Beyond the Sea” that his wife loved, telling a beautiful story that can only be seen from a third-person perspective, unknown to the protagonist. The wife, the cap, and the hotel all disappear, but some things live on forever. The film deals with the traces of time that are too small to be noticed but that do exist. Especially in the moment when their first meeting in the past is summoned from the present. Struggling with the pain of loss, the film demonstrates how cinematic magic can revive time. (NAM Dong-chul)

Albert (Damien Bonnard), a freelance journalist living in the outskirts of Paris, vows to avenge the brutal murder of his young daughter. By his side is Sayoko (Shibasaki Ko), a Japanese doctor who, for reasons unknown, assists him in his quest for revenge. To uncover the truth, Sayoko and Albert resort to capturing and brutally torturing those connected to the case. They eventually uncover that the people who kidnapped his daughter are linked to a mysterious cult, but a shocking truth that no one could have anticipated is coiled up behind it. Serpent’s Path (2024) is an adaptation and remake of Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s 1998 film of the same name. Filmed in France and in French, the movie shares the basic storyline of the original but diverges from the cult classic yakuza genre of its predecessor. Though filled with gritty and brutal violence, the film ultimately reaches the profound depths behind the truth. Above all, Shibasaki Ko’s restrained and chilling performance adds the final touch of suspense. (SONG Kyung-won)

Hong has many circumstances tied to poverty, leading to numerous secrets and misunderstandings. Even as she moves her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia, from a remote nursing home to her small single room, what Hong truly desires isn’t her mother, but her mother’s bank account. Her past relationship is marred by unpaid debts and harsh words, and the new one she’s just begun is precariously adorned with lies in an attempt to make it work. Meanwhile, her dreams remain distant, and her youth slowly fades away. Jang Sun, who won the Actor of the Year at the 20th BIFF, delivers a sensitive performance that turns Hong into something of a mystery. Trapped between relentless misfortune and a desperate grasp for happiness, Hong is a character who is clueless and difficult to decipher. Red Nails shakes the audience’s emotions with its persistent and chilling portrayal of its characters and relationships. (JUNG Hanseok)

The tunnels of the mine where two miners, Viet and Nam, go down every day are not only a hot, dark, and dangerous workplace but also a warm and cozy universe for just the two of them. Born as a posthumous child Nam has the life-long task of finding the remains of his father, a Vietnam veteran who was killed in the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, he wishes to leave Vietnam and find a new life by smuggling himself out of the country. Viet, in the meantime, hopes to continue staying in Vietnam with Nam but hesitates to express his feelings to him. Viet and Nam by director Truong Minh Quy, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, delivers a contrasting sense of the same space through outstanding visual direction. Just as the romance between the two men and the pain of war coexist, the boundary between the living and the dead becomes blurred and vague. (Dave KIM)

Two working class youtubers ‘in the making’ enter an abandoned mansion to get their basketball back, and get lost inside while pranking each other. They record their ‘quick adventure’ with their phones for their audience, and tweak it with a fake phantom appearance to attract more followers to their YouTube channel. When uploaded the video goes viral, so they start a challenge: if the video reaches a certain number of views, they will enter the house again, at night, alone, totally unprotected. As fans react positively, they will do as promised, not only to discover and unveil the true nature of the place and their inhabitants, but to realize they might not be among the living anymore. Which opens a question - how far would you go to be famous?

Jihun is a 19-year-old trainee working at a small factory, where he is paired with Wooseok, his indifferent and careless supervisor. When a problem arises with a client, Jihun, who doesn’t have a driver’s license, happens to take the wheel. This is a film with an impressively warm gaze on the bleak lives of the two workers from different generations. (KANG Sowon)