News
MICROHABITAT Earns Tiger Uncaged Award at NYAFF
I CAN SPEAK Picks Up Audience Award in New York
JEON Go-woon’s acclaimed debut feature Microhabitat has picked up the Tiger Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF). Director JEON and actor AHN Jae-hong were on hand to receive the prize at the festival’s award ceremony. Another prizewinner on the night was the emotional drama I Can Speak (2017) from director KIM Hyun-suk, which earned the Audience Award.
A member of the KwangHwaMoon Cinema, which has been responsible for prior indie hits such as Sunshine Boys (2013) and The King of Jokgu (2014), JEON marked her debut with Microhabitat which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival last October, where it picked up the CGV ARTHOUSE Award.
The film stars E Som as a young maid with a strict daily budget that is thrown into disarray when the price of cigarettes doubles overnight, forcing her to give up the roof over her head and drift through the couches of her old college bandmates. The film has been a hit on the festival circuit, scoring invites to the Fantasia, Göteborg and Vilnius International Film Festivals, among others.
From veteran filmmaker KIM, I Can Speak stars NA Moon-hee as a cantankerous elderly woman who goes head to head with a new civil servant at a local district office. Touching on the history of comfort women in Korea, who were conscripted into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II, the film was a steady hit during last year’s Chuseok holiday in Korea, when it was seen by around 3.3 million viewers.
