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IDOL, HAN Suk-kyu and SUL Kyung-gu Awarded at Fantasia
Special Mentions for MAGGIE and ANOTHER CHILD in Montreal
LEE Su-jin’s sophomore film Idol picked up the Cheval Noir Award for Best Film at the recently concluded 23rd edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. The film’s stars HAN Suk-kyu and SUL Kyung-gu also shared the Cheval Noir Award for Best Actor.
Meanwhile, both YI Ok-seop’s Maggie (2018) and KIM Yun-seok’s Another Child received a special mention in the ‘New Flesh Award – Debut Films’ competitive section. KIM Myung-eun’s The First Class took home the Best Animated Short Film prize.
Idol debuted in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival in February and was released domestically on March 20. Swiri (1999) and The Berlin File (2013) star HAN features as a politician whose son is involved in an accident that claims the life of the disabled son of a working class man played by A Peppermint Candy (2000) and Public Enemy (2002) star SUL. CHUN Woo-hee, star of LEE’s previous film Han Gong-ju (2014), plays a woman who witnessed the accident.
This year’s Cheval Noir jury at Fantasia noted that “From start to finish, Idol is an incredibly well-made film. We were struck by the great screenplay, performances, and directing.”. Regarding the prize for HAN and SUL, they related that “Both actors brilliantly go through a wide range of emotions while their lives are colliding and collapsing, making these doomed characters extremely believable.”.
Korean films have been very popular at Fantasia over the years, with recent winners including SONG Kang-ho, who picked up the Best Actor prize for A Taxi Driver in 2017, while KIM Da-mi took home the Best Actress prize for The Witch : Part 1. The Subversion (2018) last year.
Idol is the follow-up film to Director LEE’s acclaimed debut Han Gong-ju (2014), which earned several prizes at the Busan International Film Festival before claiming top awards at the Marrakesh International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Fribourg International Film Festival, among others.
