Director Lee Chang-dong's new film "A Possible Love" has been selected as South Korea's entry for the international feature film category at the 99th Academy Awards.
The Korean Film Council said on the 25th that it had chosen the Netflix film "A Possible Love" as the country's submission for this year's Academy Award for international feature film. The film tells the story of a laid-off worker and his wife who meet a documentary director and his wife, confronting their different lives and hidden desires.
The film is Lee's first new work in eight years since "Burning" (2018) and stars Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong. Having been invited to the competition section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival in September, and now selected as Korea's Academy entry, the film is drawing growing attention from film circles at home and abroad.
At a production presentation held in Seoul's Mapo District that day, Lee explained that "A Possible Love" is, as its title suggests, a film about love. "It poses questions about what kind of love is possible and what we must do to make love possible," he said.
The film's starting point is the issue of mass layoffs. "Mass layoffs at large Korean corporations leave deep scars and have a wide social impact," Lee said. "I thought it was an event capable of changing the very lives of ordinary people." He stressed, "It is at times like these that love sustains our lives. I thought that love is the essence not only of relationships between men and women but of relationships among people."
It was more than a decade ago that Lee first thought of making a film about the lives of laid-off workers. At the time, he prepared production with Jeon Do-yeon and Sol Kyung-gu in the lead roles but shelved the plan, unable to find conviction in why the film needed to be made. That script was adapted into the short film "Heartbeat" (2022), and later, with the addition of the story of a wealthy documentary director couple, it was reborn as "A Possible Love."
The actors also have high expectations. Jeon Do-yeon said, "The lingering impression after reading the script was so intense that I thought, 'This is Director Lee Chang-dong after all.'" She described her character, Mi-ok, as "someone who appears fragile but is strong." Sol Kyung-gu said, "I thought I should return to my original spirit," adding, "It was overwhelming to feel the emotions from the days of 'Peppermint Candy' become reality again."
Jo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong, working with Lee for the first time, also expressed their affection for the project. Jo In-sung said, "I went to the set with a mind to learn," describing it as "a set full of affection, tenderness and camaraderie." Cho Yeo-jeong recalled, "It was something I had always longed for," adding, "Every minute and second felt too precious to let pass."
In the selection process for the Academy entry, the film's overall quality, the director's message, its mise-en-scène, and its North American distribution capacity and recognition were key factors. The jury highly rated Lee's distinctive humanism and delicate direction, along with his three-dimensional characters and the multilayered nature of their relationships. In particular, the film benefited from the track record of his previous work "Burning," which became the first Korean film to make the shortlist for the Academy Award for best foreign language film, as well as strong interest from North American media.
Meanwhile, "A Possible Love" will open in select theaters in South Korea on September 23 before being released on Netflix on November 6. Whether it makes the Academy shortlist is set to be decided later this year.
