Director Lee Chang-dong's new film "A Possible Love" will compete for the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice International Film Festival. It is the director's first entry in the competition section since "Oasis" in 2002, raising the question of whether he can deliver only the second Golden Lion in Korean cinema history. Attention is sharper because Park Chan-wook's "No Other Choice" left last year's festival empty-handed despite making the competition lineup.
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival opens on the 2nd on the Lido in Venice, Italy. Over 11 days through the 12th, 20 films including "A Possible Love" will vie for the Golden Lion, the festival's best-picture award. The main winners will be announced at the closing ceremony on the 12th, with Hollywood actor and director Maggie Gyllenhaal serving as jury president for the competition section.
Lee's return to the competition section comes 24 years after "Oasis," which won the directing award, the best new actress prize for Moon So-ri and the FIPRESCI award from the International Federation of Film Critics.
"A Possible Love" also draws attention as a Netflix production. The film follows a laid-off worker, played by Sol Kyung-gu, and his wife, played by Jeon Do-yeon, who meet a documentary director, played by Cho Yeo-jeong, and her husband, played by Jo In-sung, for a documentary shoot. As their different lives collide, they come to recognize desires they had kept hidden.
A win for Lee would be the second Golden Lion for a Netflix film after Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma" in 2018, and the first for a Korean film in 14 years since the late Kim Ki-duk's "Pieta" in 2012. "Pieta" remains the only Korean film to have won the Golden Lion at Venice.
The competition is crowded with heavyweights. Contenders include Danny Boyle's "Ink," which opens the festival, Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Look Back," Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine," as well as "Bucking Bastard" and "Company."
Recent Golden Lions have gone to auteur films by veteran directors, a pattern that may work in favor of "A Possible Love." Pedro Almodovar's "The Room Next Door" took the prize at the 81st festival, and Jim Jarmusch's "Father Mother Sister Brother" won at the 82nd. Both directors are regarded as auteurs who adhere to classical film grammar.
"A Possible Love" opens in select theaters in South Korea on the 23rd before streaming on Netflix on November 6.
