News

What happens when you’ve exhausted all options and cast your last line of hope into the sea of unattainable American Dreams? This is the question posed by co-writer and director Justin Kim WooSŏk in his Korean American short film Sarajin. Making its debut at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, the story follows an unobtrusive but diligent snow crab fisherman (Jongman Kim) struggling to make ends meet for his immigrant family. When the snow crab that he and the rest of the fishing village depend on suddenly disappear due to climate change, he and his family have to decide whether to stay or leave their new home behind.

Here, the filmmaker talks to Deadline about displacement, life out on the ocean and wanting to poke holes in the follies of the American Dream to show a nuanced breadth of the immigrant experience.

Deadline: How did you end up in filmmaking?...

A young child faces a strange presence in the aftermath of his father’s death. Years later, after he has grown up to become an adult, that presence returns once more in the form of a liquid spectral doppelgänger. Director Alex Cook’s music video/short film hybrid Undertow thematically and narratively captures the dark yet warming essence of Son Lux’s singular music and is grounded by an impressive central performance from Jongman Kim, who carries the emotional and psychological weight of the protagonist’s unsettling history into each scene. Dn caught up with Cook to talk through his continuing fruitful collaboration with Son Lux, covering everything from the creation of the graceful VFX work, the inclination to capture the murky uncertainty of contemporary life in his screenplay, and the challenge of managing production when a key crew member had to be replaced at the eleventh hour.

The film...

Los Angeles, Nov. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The eighth annual Asian World Film Festival (Awff) announced its competition winners at a star-studded event November 18 at Beverly Hill’s Saban Theater. The Last Film Show (India), directed by Pan Nalin, won the Snow Leopard Award for Best Film; Mohsen Tanabandeh garnered the Snow Leopard for Best Actor for World War III (Iran), and Hui Fang Hong was honored with the Snow Leopard for Best Actress for Ajoomma (Singapore).

Asian World Film Festival (Awff)

The Snow Leopard Special Jury Award went to World War III, directed by Houman Seyedi, and the Snow Leopard Audience Award to Aurora’s Sunrise (Armenia), directed by Inna Sahakyan. Kerr (Turkey) director of photography, Andreas Sinanos, received the Panavision Best Cinematography Award along with a 60,000 Panavision Camera Grant of cutting-edge filmmaking equipment.

Short films and the talent behind them were also recognized at the standing-room-only event. The Hollywood Foreign Press...

“Clytaemnestra”, the full-length debut by Ougie Pak, was written and shot during a workshop for actors in Greece. The movie premiered at BAMcinemaFest 2021.

“Clytaemnestra” is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival

Hye Bin (Haru Kim) arrives in Greece for the rehearsals of a new rendition of Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon”. Though initially set to play Clytemnestra, the young actress is soon changed by the famous but domineering director (Jongman Kim) with the famous and subservient actress Ian Kim (Taehee Kim). As Hye Bin starts getting bullied the other actress and her skills are constantly questioned by the director and the entire crew, the young woman begins feeling desperation.

Early on in the film, the director of the play plays a clip of “Agamemnon” to the actors and asks them about the themes of the ancient tragedy. Some of them say it is Han, using Korean concept for a Greek piece, while others,...

Greek tragedy echos through the modern-day Korean #MeToo movement in Ougie Pak’s Clytaemnestra. Made on the fly at an acting workshop in Greece, the film follows an actress as she struggles with the text of Agamemnon and against her domineering director, exploring power dynamics and the artistic process. Though very slight indeed, the film plays a bit like a more on-the-nose version of one of Hong Sang-soo’s sequentially shot explorations of sexist microaggressions and meta-cinematic reflexivity.

Hye Bin (Haru Kim) arrives in Athens with her hard-shell wheelie suitcase to begin rehearsals with a director played by Jongman Kim, an actor who in fact invited Pak to come to Greece and make a movie out of a two-week acting workshop he was leading there. Flying out with just a cinematographer and a production coordinator, and shooting on a Canon C100 “since it was the free camera available to us...